The Quiet Trump-GOP Coup: How to Steal a Country Without Anyone Noticing

When the State Becomes Your

When the Trump administration announced in August that the U.S. government would take a 10% stake in Intel, people scrambled for historical parallels. Some invoked New Deal-era interventions, others pointed to wartime nationalizations. But the closest precedent wasn't found in American history books—it had unfolded in real time, a few thousand miles away in Budapest.

Viktor Orbán has spent the last decade perfecting something that still gets classified as a market economy by international indices but functions like a political machine. His method doesn't involve dramatic seizures or revolutionary proclamations. Instead, it operates through a more sophisticated alchemy: transforming market pressure into political control, competitive advantage into personal loyalty, and economic success into existential dependence on the ruler's favor.

Now, as Washington begins experimenting with direct corporate ownership and using state power to reshape private industry, Orbán's Hungarian laboratory offers a glimpse of where such policies lead when taken to their logical conclusion.

When foreign executives complain about operating in Hungary today, the stories they tell often sound like variations of the same playbook. Inspections suddenly multiply. Taxes are reinterpreted, then hiked. Licenses are delayed, permits revoked, and lawsuits appear from nowhere.

If the company is foreign-owned, particularly in a lucrative or "strategic" sector, the pressure intensifies until one option looks easier than the rest: sell. And in Hungary, the buyer is rarely a stranger — it is almost always a firm tied to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's government or to one of his closest allies.

The Austrian retailer SPAR, which runs hundreds of supermarkets in Hungary, publicly accused the government in 2024 of harassment designed to force a sale of its local business. German companies in construction and cement have voiced similar frustrations, after suddenly facing 90% "superprofit" taxes that made profitability impossible — while government-connected bidders emerged with offers to take the assets off their hands.

Even Budapest Airport, a crown jewel of foreign investment, found itself strangled in red tape until it was sold back to a state consortium. The message was unmistakable: in Hungary, business success depends less on market strength than on political favor.

This is where Orbán's model of governance becomes visible. Rather than nationalize industries outright, his government has perfected a subtler form of takeover. The state creates unbearable conditions for outsiders, while insiders close to Orbán are shielded from such pressures and rewarded with cheap acquisitions. Over time, the commanding heights of the economy — retail, construction, banking, media — end up in the hands of loyalists.

No figure embodies this system more clearly than Lőrinc Mészáros, a childhood friend of Orbán's who rose from running a small gas-fitter's shop to becoming one of Hungary's wealthiest men. His companies, fed a steady diet of state contracts, dominate sectors from construction to energy. Other businessmen who fell out with Orbán's circle saw their fortunes collapse almost overnight, their firms squeezed by regulators and then absorbed into the loyalist camp. Media outlets, too, followed this trajectory. Hundreds were merged into a single government-friendly foundation in 2018, effectively eliminating independent press competition. Stroke by stroke.

The logic behind these maneuvers is not purely economic. They are political at the core. By directing lucrative assets and contracts into the hands of allies, Orbán ensures that the country's economic elite owes its survival to him. The loyalty is not voluntary — it is existential.

Foreign companies that resist find themselves worn down by endless battles. Hungarian entrepreneurs who oppose him face the same fate. Meanwhile, those who play along receive not just wealth but protection, a seat at the inner table where economic opportunity is distributed by political design.

The effect is cumulative. Over the past decade, Orbán has not only reshaped Hungary's politics but also its economy into an extension of his political machinery. Business leaders are no longer a separate class that might challenge his rule; they are embedded within it, dependent on his continued dominance for their survival. By weakening foreign influence, rewarding loyal oligarchs, and starving dissenting voices of resources, Orbán has achieved something beyond mere electoral victories. He has constructed a system where economic and political power reinforce one another, each feeding the other, leaving little room for organized resistance.

This is how Orbán consolidated his grip over Hungary. Not by openly seizing companies in the manner of a socialist nationalizer, but by bending the rules of capitalism into tools of political control. It is a system that looks competitive from the outside — businesses still run, contracts are still awarded, and ownership still changes hands.

Yet beneath the surface, the competition is staged, the winners preordained. Hungary's economy has become, in effect, a shadow extension of Orbán's party, ensuring that as long as he governs, the wealth of the nation remains tied to his power.

Across the Atlantic, a similar logic is emerging, though wrapped in different rhetoric. The Trump administration's recent forays into direct corporate ownership suggest that Orbán's model may be less unique than it initially appeared.

In August 2025, the U.S. government acquired a 9.9% stake in Intel for $8.9 billion, with Trump declaring he would make similar deals "all day long." Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed that Pentagon leaders are "thinking about" taking stakes in defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, noting that since Lockheed "makes 97% of their revenue from the U.S. government," it is "basically an arm of the U.S. government."

The justification differs - national security rather than political control - but the mechanism is strikingly similar. Trump has established a sovereign wealth fund and spoken of expanding government ownership stakes across industries. Where Orbán uses regulatory pressure to force asset transfers to allies, Trump uses direct government investment to secure state control. Both approaches achieve the same end: blurring the line between political authority and economic ownership.

The next steps in this progression are predictable because they follow economic incentives. Once the government holds equity stakes in major corporations, a self-reinforcing cycle begins. Why would the Pentagon choose competitors over Lockheed when the government profits directly from Lockheed's success? Why would regulators impose strict oversight on Intel when they're shareholders?

Corporate boards, understanding their fiduciary duty now includes keeping the government-shareholder satisfied, naturally align their political donations, lobbying positions, and public statements with administration priorities.

Meanwhile, companies without government stakes face the double burden of competing against subsidized rivals while navigating potentially hostile regulatory environments. The economic elite, whether in Budapest or Washington, learns the same lesson: prosperity flows through political favor, not market performance.

This transforms capitalism itself into an instrument of political control. The government becomes simultaneously regulator and beneficiary, competitor and referee. Whether achieved through Orbán's coercive transfers or Trump's direct investments, the result is identical: a system where economic and political power reinforce each other, squeezing out independent actors and ensuring that as long as the leader governs, the wealth of key industries remains tied to his continued dominance.

The United States remains far from Hungary's condition. American institutions retain strength, the press maintains some form of independence, and opposition parties control significant resources. Orbán needed a decade to construct his system; Trump has had months. But the Hungarian experience reveals how quickly democracies can be hollowed out when economic and political power begin to merge, particularly when the process appears gradual and legally justified.

What makes this moment dangerous is not the dramatic seizure of power but its mundane packaging. Each government stake in a corporation, each favorable contract awarded to allies, each regulatory burden placed on competitors creates precedents that future administrations can expand. The system builds its own momentum—companies learn to curry favor, politicians discover the benefits of economic leverage, and the boundaries between public authority and private wealth gradually dissolve.

The best time to stop a slide toward authoritarianism is before it becomes one. What we're witnessing is not yet a dictatorship but the construction of its foundation: the infrastructure of control that makes democracy reversible. The 2026 midterm elections represent an existential test—the first chance to halt this trajectory while democratic safeguards still function. Without a decisive rejection of this model at the ballot box, the 2028 presidential election may be America's last chance to choose between democracy and oligarchy.

The choice is stark because the mechanism is clear. Once government becomes both regulator and beneficiary, democracy becomes a luxury that economic elites can no longer afford to support. Ask any Hungarian businessman who once believed in market competition—if you can find one willing to speak freely.

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