Good News from Hungarians, Astronauts, and the Pope

With “Doctor Trump” denying he’s Jesus and all the other hideous nonsense assaulting our senses, it’s easy to forget the positive stories coursing through our lives. They are clear signs that MAGA is not the wave of the future.

Yes, when Trump thundered that “a whole civilization will die tonight,” he was trashing our civilization, too. Enlightened societies don’t threaten genocide. That’s what despots do. Witness the “Death to America” slogan of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. On top of all the other stupidities of the war, we are in danger of becoming what we’re trying to fight.

And any good news of this week is tempered by the chilling fact that we still have more than a thousand days to go with this sicko president and his gang of thugs and grifters—nearly as long as the entire Kennedy administration. More bad shit is on the way, every day, and the lickspittle Trump Cabinet will never invoke the 25th Amendment.

So I’m not saying this struggle against authoritarianism is over. What has changed is the deep fear in 2025 about the inevitability of the bad guys winning and a curtain of shamelessness and corruption descending over the West.

Hungarian Patriots

The thumping of Viktor Orbán in Hungary showed that if Democrats stay focused, the worst of our long national nightmare will soon be a memory. That’s because we now have a good idea of how the traumatic American story ends: the way Orbán’s just did, with defeats so crushing they defy the strongman’s criminal intent to reverse them.

Remember, it was Orbán who wrote the playbook on strangling democracy. Over the last decade, he instructed MAGA and right-wing movements worldwide on how to buy off the media, corrupt the courts, slime critics, steal with pride and use fear and threats of violence to run up margins in rigged elections.

Recall how CPAC—the premier Republican organization in the U.S.—actually held one of its big conventions in Budapest. Last week, JD Vance didn’t just praise Orbán; he broke 250 years of precedent and directly campaigned for a foreign candidate—while accusing Ukraine of electoral interference. (I was tempted to put an exclamation point here to emphasize the extreme hypocrisy of doing so but then I’d need to do that at the end of every sentence I write about these goons.)

Vice President JD Vance and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Budapest, April 7. Credit: Associated Press

Then came this moment of historic inspiration. The Hungarian people refused to be intimidated and now the tectonic plates of global politics are shifting.

History shows that global politics are often tidal. If Mussolini had lost power (as he nearly did in 1924) in Italy, Hitler would have had more trouble gaining it in Germany. And if Franco, despite Nazi help, had lost the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Hitler would have had less of the momentum he needed to launch World War II.

It works the other way, too. In the decade after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, more than 50 nations transitioned toward democracy. That’s more than a quarter of all countries on Earth. All of them had weaker democratic muscle memory than we do when they turned in the right direction.

Because we don’t have a parliamentary system, we can’t begin our own transition right now with a vote of no confidence.

But relief is at hand. House Speaker Mike Johnson said in February that if Republicans lose the midterms, “It would be the end of the Trump presidency.” That means we have only six months to go before Trump is the lamest of lame ducks. Then we can begin to hold some of these jokers accountable.

Artemis II

It’s no coincidence that quiet patriots inside NASA named the Artemis II spacecraft Integrity. The glorious mission showed that for all the poison in our public life, we remain a collection of decent people. I tuned in to CNN to watch the splashdown live and found myself glued to the screen for hours as Anderson Cooper chatted with Mark Kelly and other veterans of the Space Shuttle and watched the smiling astronauts emerge, symbols of all that is good about our country. I found it hugely refreshing and I wasn’t alone.

We heard former Space Shuttle astronauts describe the feeling of getting real mayo on a Subway sandwich or sleeping in an Airbnb on the day of their return. It was a good reminder that we still have plenty of idealistic, talented public servants who, even when they’re in space, have their feet on the ground. A charming William Shatner put the Artemis mission in the context of the expeditions of Magellan and Shackleton.

The Artemis II crew, clockwise from left, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, and Pilot Victor Glover, share a group hug inside the Orion spacecraft on their way home on Wednesday, April 7, 2026. Credit: NASA via Associated Press

When he was aboard Artemis II, Astronaut Victor Glover, noticing the chord the mission had struck, emailed his friend Mike Massimino:

“Tell the world to keep this energy going. Let’s invest in togetherness.”

Beyond the science, that was the core of the mission. “Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbed in the universe,” Christina Koch recalled of her view from space:

“Planet Earth—you are a crew.”

Describing a mission of “humanity and humility,” Commander Reid Wiseman said:

“You’re not looking at us. We’re a mirror of you. If you like what you see, look a little deeper. This is you.”

The Pope Strikes Back

Pope Leo hopes we see our better selves, too. He may be a White Sox fan (I favor the Cubs) but this pope knew just how to respond to the first attack on a pope by a head of state since the Middle Ages. When Trump tread where even Hitler and Mussolini dared not go (in part because Pope Pius was agnostic on fascism), Leo pivoted to peace—a place where the country and the world are solidly on his side.

And he got off a quip about Truth Social that was no papal bull:

“It’s ironic—the name of the site itself. Say no more.”

Trump lost Catholics by five points to Joe Biden, but he carried them by 20 against Kamala Harris. Now he’s way below 50 percent with Catholics and the polls that show the hemorrhaging were taken before his tiff with the pope.

Our time of salvation will come—if we “invest in togetherness.” And the midterms.

Subscribe to Old Goats with Jonathan Alter, where this article originally appeared.

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