On Sunday, 19 April 2026, Dirk Kurbjuweit writes a sentence in his Spiegel article that is true: “The competition between systems has by now become more of a contest of results.” Orbán lost because his government delivered poor results — corruption, frozen EU funds, economic decline. The Hungarians did not vote for democracy. They voted against failure. That is an important difference.
And Kurbjuweit draws the obvious conclusion: the liberal democracies must deliver better. They must win the contest of results. That is correct. And it is — once again — incomplete. For he does not ask the question that decides everything: why are they not delivering?
I. The gap in the diagnosis
Orbán lost because poor results caught up with him. The AfD is winning because it does not yet have any results to answer for. That is the asymmetry that Kurbjuweit correctly describes. But the question he does not ask is: why have the parties of the centre in Germany, in France, in Italy, in Sweden, in the Netherlands, for decades no longer delivered for the majority of people? And the next question many are asking themselves: for whom have they delivered?
The answer very probably does not lie in a lack of will on the part of politicians. Viewed soberly, it lies first and foremost in the construction of the system. Market-conforming democracy — Merkel's phrase of 1 September 2011, which was not a slip of the tongue but a description of reality — has systematically prevented democracy from delivering for the majority. The markets condition politics. Investment protection agreements punish democratic decisions. The financial markets sanction redistribution in real time. The Megamachine has narrowed democracy's room for manoeuvre so far that “deliver better” as an appeal falls into the void.
Kurbjuweit describes the symptoms. He does not name the cause. And an appeal to democracy without an analysis of causes is the same as an appeal to a patient to try harder — without asking why he is ill.
II. Orbán and democracy's immune memory
Orbán lost the election — and he accepted the result. That cannot be taken for granted. It is the democratic immune system that still worked — this time, in Hungary, under these conditions. That deserves respect and cautious relief.
But caution is called for. Orbán had sixteen years to rebuild the institutions — the judiciary, the media, the electoral law. He lost nevertheless. That shows that the democratic immune system is more robust than is sometimes feared. It does not show that it is invulnerable. The next generation of autocrats — in Romania, in Slovakia, in Serbia, perhaps tomorrow in Germany — is learning from Orbán's mistakes. They will hollow out the institutions more thoroughly. They will manage the economy better. Or shape the crisis so that poor results are blamed on the right enemy.
The democratic immune system has no memory. Every generation must acquire it anew — against new variants of the virus. Orbán's defeat is a signal. It is not a guarantee.
III. The AfD and the structural question
In Germany the AfD is the strongest party in a poll for the first time — 26 per cent. That is not a chance result and not a passing protest. It is the result of a structural development that has been under way for thirty years: the deindustrialisation of certain regions, growing inequality, the erosion of public infrastructure, the feeling that politics decides on behalf of others.
The AfD did not cause this development. It has harvested it. And it will go on harvesting as long as the causes are not remedied. Kurbjuweit is right: the parties of the centre must deliver better. But delivering better does not mean better communication or sharper demarcation from the AfD. It means naming and combating the structural causes of failure — even if that creates conflict with the forces that produce the failure and profit from it.
That is the question Der Spiegel does not ask. Because the answer would be uncomfortable — for its readers, for its advertisers, for the contacts in the networks that secure Der Spiegel its reach. That is not a reproach against Kurbjuweit personally. It is a description of the structure in which he operates.
IV. What “delivering better” really means
“Delivering better” without structural change is an empty demand. Liberal democracy can only win the contest of results if it changes the conditions under which results are produced. That means: strengthening the negative feedback loops that the Megamachine has weakened. Introducing justice as a target variable in its own right — not as a trickle-down by-product. Closing the democratic gaps that have grown since Dahrendorf.
This is not a left-wing programme. It is a systems-theoretical necessity. A system that eliminates its own negative feedback loops destabilises itself — regardless of whether one calls that politically left or right. Vester showed this for ecological systems. It applies equally to political systems.
V. The really disturbing question
Orbán did not lose because the Hungarians rediscovered democracy. He lost because he did not deliver. The democratic immune system still worked this time — a great sigh of relief.
But here is the question everyone can answer for themselves: what if Péter Magyar's government also fails to deliver in the coming years? In a country that is economically weakened, whose EU funds were frozen for years, whose institutions are damaged — in a global situation that no government controls. The chances of delivering are not good. And if Magyar does not deliver — what then?
The pendulum swings back. Not to Orbán, perhaps — but to someone who repackages the same message. And this time with an argument that is harder to refute: the democrats did not deliver either. So the problem lies not with the system but with the wrong people. Give us power — real power, without brakes, without courts, without a free press — and we will deliver.
That is the real trap. And it is structural — not personal. No government can deliver any more, because the Megamachine systematically narrows the room for manoeuvre of all governments. Left, right, centre — all run up against the same limits. Financial markets that sanction democratic decisions in real time. Investment protection agreements that punish states for democratically enacted laws. AI-driven processes that are faster than any democratic control. Positive feedback loops of inequality that reinforce themselves and narrow the political room for manoeuvre still further.
The people's short memory — four years, then the next election — meets a structure that changes over decades and at the same time in milliseconds. The result is a pendulum that swings between directions without coming to rest in a stable position. Every government fails on the same structures. Every defeat is interpreted as a failure of people — not as a failure of the system. And the solution on offer is always the same: more power, less control, fewer brakes.
Kurbjuweit is right: the competition between systems is a contest of results. But the contest of results is lost before it begins — as long as the structures that prevent results are not changed. The democratic immune system worked in Hungary this time. It will not work for ever if every new government fails on the same limits. The question is not who wins the next election. The question is whether anyone can change the structures that turn every winner into a loser.
VI. The invisible constitution
On 1 September 2011 Angela Merkel said at a press conference in Berlin: “We do live in a democracy, and we are also glad of it. This is a parliamentary democracy. That is why the right to decide the budget is a core right of parliament. In this respect we will find ways of shaping parliamentary co-determination so that it is nevertheless also market-conforming, that is, so that the corresponding signals emerge on the markets.”
The sentence deserves a close reading. “We are also glad of it” — not: we are glad of it. The “also” opens a gap. Glad of what else? Democracy is one more thing to be glad about — but evidently not the first. It sounds like: well, we happen to have democracy, and now we have to come to terms with the situation somehow.
And then “nevertheless also market-conforming” — the “nevertheless” is the telltale word. It implies: parliamentary co-determination would actually be a problem for the markets. We must find a way to shape it nevertheless so that the markets are not disturbed. Parliament as a disturbance variable that has to be calibrated so that it sends the right signals — so that the corresponding signals emerge on the markets. Parliament's main task: to produce the right market signals.
That was no slip of the tongue. It was a description of reality — more precise than anything Merkel's critics ever said about her. It is not the markets that have to adapt to the needs of democracy. Democracy has to adapt to the markets. That is the invisible constitution that stands above the visible one.
This restructuring is not Merkel's work alone. It began in the 1980s — with Thatcher, with Reagan, with the step-by-step deregulation of the financial markets, with the privatisation of public goods, with the rewriting of the purpose of the state from the common good to the competitiveness of the business location. Merkel did not invent it. She completed it in Germany — and said so openly.
The result is what more and more people feel in their own lives: no government can deliver any more. Not because politicians are generally incompetent — some are, some are not. But because “delivering” would mean standing up to the markets. And that is the one line that all governments — left, right, centre — do not cross. The markets are the limit of the possible. Whatever lies beyond that limit — redistribution, public investment, social security that really protects — is ruled out as being WITHOUT ALTERNATIVE (alternativlos).
More and more people are coming to understand that no government can change anything about this state of affairs any longer — and possibly does not seriously want to, for those who govern are beneficiaries of the same system. Instead they still carry the monstrance through the streets, again and again. Elections. Debates. Coalition negotiations. The ritual of democracy — while the real decisions are made in the space between financial markets, lobbyists and ministries, where nobody was elected and nobody can be voted out. Ralf Dahrendorf described this as early as 2003:
“The spaces in which political decisions are made today have become more diffuse. We are governed without being able to point a finger at governments that bring this about. This means that in many places institutional gaps have arisen, spaces for which we have no democratic institutions.” — Ralf Dahrendorf, Transit, 2003
Twenty years later the gap has not become smaller. It is larger.
Germany feels this particularly sharply. Decline from a supposedly high level is the worst — whoever had a great deal, or believed he had a great deal, has a correspondingly long way to fall. He loses the conviction that anyone still has the situation under control. The mood becomes explosive. Not because people have become extremist — but because the monstrance is empty and more and more of them know it.