Each time I write about Hungary, American readers respond with a familiar refrain. Take note, America. The phrase arrives as both a warning and a plea, a recognition that the distance between our countries is not as wide as it once seemed.

I have tried to consider what, if anything, that instruction should demand and what, uniquely, I can offer by drawing these comparisons now.

Hungary does not present a hero to be imported, nor a political template to be copied. What it offers is more ambiguous and more useful: a demonstration of how private frustration, accumulated over years, can cross the threshold into public action, and how that action, if sustained, can become a campaign.

In my new article, I follow the threads that connect Tisza to the coming American midterms: the discipline of local organising, the slow accumulation of voter contact, the experiments of groups like No Kings, the ballot measures that test the boundaries of what is possible, and the brutal, persistent work that transforms opposition into power.

Anger and will exist, but America’s anti-Trump coalition will urgently need to organise this anger into purposeful, collective action before time closes the window.

Now is the moment to turn frustration into sustained effort and take action before the opportunity passes.