With all the news of Brexit and Syria and Trump, it can be hard to hear the good news out there... especially when it comes from a small Eastern European country most people can't point out on a map.

But this week, the most successful model of Modern Authoritarian Dictator was dealt a resounding blow in the polls: Viktor Orban's Fidesz party in Hungary suffered heavy losses in all of the major metropolitan areas in Hungary. (Of which there are, like, 4. Tops.)

In the countryside, the farmers still long for the old days of Communism, and adore a misogynist motherfucker strongman who kills his opponents with little concern for coverups, and freely sets up his own set of kangaroo courts and bribery pipelines.

But... the people who actually make the money that keeps the country functioning - the city-dwellers - have had enough of this silliness, and despite the usual vote tampering and voter roll gaming, the urbanites have told Fidesz they have gone too far.

Orban has been idolized by autocrats throughout the region, including in Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, etc. He was "accepted" by the west and NATO and the EU, and gave them all cover for their even more heinous actions.

Maybe Hungary is at a turning point, and won't be a politically embarrassing footnote any longer.

Aw, who am I kidding. The videki (country-folk) will fuck it up somehow again.