Orban is 60. That’s young in dictator terms. He won’t give up power easily, and he’ll have it for as long as he wants it. He will get worse.
The dictator persona relies hugely on personal charisma but it also has to be sort of tailored to the individual country. That’s why the far right in this country try to play hugely on the Celtic mysticism bullshit. It’s what an American or a Russian who knows nothing about the country would think might appeal to an Irish audience. The Americans and the Russians have heard of Conor McGregor and they know he has a wacky persona so that’s why they’re funding him.
Trump is the dictator suited to make America fall because his brand is dumb entertainment and celebrity and Americans are obsessed with celebrity.
Yer man in Argentina’s brand is El Loco the werewolf.
Bolsonaro’s brand is telling women they’re too ugly to be raped and appealing to evangelical God botherers and white racists and non-whites too stupid to understand they’re being played for fools.
Putin’s brand is dullness and greyness. Russians want their dictators to be dull and grey and taciturn.
Boris Johnson’s brand was Just William playing Winston Churchill with a floppy Dulux dog hairstyle.
In western Europe, the far right seem short enough on potential dictators. Le Pen is a charisma free, taciturn boot. But she has more than enough about her to grind France down into chaos. The Nazis in Germany haven’t really come up with any potential Fuhrer material. Then again they don’t need to. All the Russians (and the Israelis) need to do is to play on German war guilt and the whole political scene in the country seems to short circuit itself with hand wringing that plays into hands of the genociders.
The two obvious potential dictator figures that spring to mind are Salvini in Italy and Geert Wilders in Holland. It looks like Wilders has been knocked back in his attempts to form a government. That’s good in one way but it will probably mean his vote goes up again at the next election. He has “it” - the force of charisma which can destroy a nation deliberately.
The far right are already in power in Italy. I don’t follow Italian politics too closely but some sort of brake appears to be being applied to them for now. Who knows how long that lasts. Salvini isn’t in power though. He could be marginalised permanently by this Giorgia Meloni character, or he may not. He might join her party, or he might not.
If Trump gets back in, which he very likely will, the backstop which underpins the whole of Europe suddenly collapses. The US will immediately enter the Russian camp. It’s sort of there already because of the interference of the Republicans, and yet it’s not. But under Trump it will be.
At this juncture Putin doesn’t really need bona fide dictator figures anywhere except in the US. In Europe he can rely on a series of duller figures which slowly grind countries down. That suits him. He prefers pliant clients. Cucks. The dictators can come later, when Putin is dead, and likely will.