Victor Orban doppelgängers tread the sidewalks, take the bus, greet diners and volunteer at the shelter. And why wouldn’t they? Chicago has the second largest Eastern European residents in the U.S. If you live in Manhattan, you must see sixty two year-old, jowled-faced, grey-haired Orban lookalikes all the time. Of course, I hardly knew his face before he lost it in the recent Hungarian election. 

For a few days Victor Orban appeared on every loopy screen in hotel bars, hamburger joints, doctor’s waiting rooms-everywhere I went. Orban touted his government as an illiberal democracy, one devoid of woke freedoms, gay rights, women’s rights, minority rights and protections for immigrants. Others described it as a kleptocracy, a mafia state. The Heritage Foundation fashioned their destruction of democracy after Orbanism and called it Project 2025, the Trump Administration’s roadmap. Orban’s loss was so monumental that freedom fighters the world over rejoiced.

Donald Trump’s role model as a loser created a shift toward a glowing hope in the world while cornering an animal in the Oval Office. More and more credentialed people started speculating that our President is sick, demented, mentally ill. MAGA podcasters turned on him. White Christian Nationalists turned on him. Republican talking heads turned on him. And he’s gotten crazier. Reports suggest he was kept out of the Situation Room while the high-stakes military operation in Iran to extract the downed pilots was underway.

Wall Street Journal, April 18: Aides kept the president out of the room as they got minute-by-minute updates because they believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful, instead updating him at meaningful moments, a senior administration official said.

The entire month of April, Trump has been so weird. Orban’s loss is his loss. His ignorance of war strategy in Iran humiliates him. Bumbling diplomatic efforts in Western Europe, the Middle East and China belittle his leadership. Elites talk about his failures. He’s a hot table of delight for late night comedy. His reaction to getting backed in the corner is to post an array of crazy, from an AI photo of himself as Jesus to yelling about wiping out a whole civilization.

From sea to shining sea, Christian pastors are condemning Trump’s Jesus and his spiritual advisor Paula White for comparing him to Jesus at a White House event. Other preachers pride themselves on keeping politics out of the pulpit. But Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who lays Jesus on every military helmet, have brought the pulpit to politics. MAGA Christians like Paula White preach Trump has a divine mandate to rule. Divine.

If Trump were our relative we’d be huddled at the kitchen table scheming on how to take the car keys away. The last thing we’d do is rejoice over all the bad things happening to him as a result of his damaging behavior. Nor would we be kneeling down to say “God will take care of us” as he lit the house on fire.

But we can’t take away the keys. Or the matches.

God help us.