There’s a political playbook that’s been quietly spreading across the Atlantic for years. Right-wing populists have mastered it. They share tactics, they amplify each other’s messaging, and they build relationships that span continents. Think Trump and Viktor Orbán’s famous friendship.
Now the other side is catching up. Ten American mayors from progressive cities just joined what’s essentially their own transatlantic political alliance: the Pact of Free Cities.
Last week in Bratislava, Slovakia, mayors from Boston, Chicago, San Antonio, Cincinnati, and Beaverton, Oregon gathered with European counterparts to compare notes on defending democracy against what they see as hostile national governments. It’s a striking move that signals how polarized politics has become at every level, and how local leaders increasingly feel they’re fighting battles their own federal governments won’t fight.
When Federal Governments Turn Against Their Own Cities
Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval was direct about why he showed up. “I’ve joined the Pact of Free Cities because of the actions of the Trump administration that continue to not just have democratic institutions and democratic values backslide in our country, but also the destruction of long-standing relationships all over the world,” Pureval told NPR.
The specifics matter here. Beaverton’s Mayor Lacey Beaty mentioned that the Trump administration threatened to cut federal funding to her city because it refused to dump its DEI policy. That’s not abstract political disagreement. That’s a federal government weaponizing funding against cities it disagrees with.
Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony knows exactly what that playbook looks like. Orbán’s government did something similar, threatening to cut garbage pickup and other city services. Instead of backing down, Karácsony put signs on trash bins blaming Orbán’s Fidesz party for the cuts. It was crude but effective. Sometimes the most powerful political messaging is just pointing out what’s actually happening.
Learning From Hungary’s Recent Victory
The real reason these American mayors flew nine time zones to Slovakia was to learn something. Karácsony had a story worth hearing: how Hungary just voted Orbán out after 16 years in power.
One turning point came when Orbán’s government tried to ban Budapest’s Pride parade. This wasn’t really about LGBTQ rights, Karácsony explained. It was designed to provoke conflict and distract from economic problems. But instead of accepting the government’s framing, the city reframed the issue entirely as a question of free speech and free assembly. Tens of thousands marched anyway.
“This was a moment where the government showed weakness,” Karácsony essentially argued. “And people recognized it.”
The lesson for American mayors isn’t hard to decode. When authoritarian-minded governments try to pick fights on cultural issues, don’t fight on their terrain. Reframe the conflict as something bigger: democracy itself, the right to dissent, the right to exist publicly.
Beaty called the whole experience “unexpectedly collaborative.” But more importantly, she recognized that American cities face nearly identical problems to those confronting European cities. Funding cuts. Political retaliation. Governments trying to punish cities for their values.
The Other Side Has Been Doing This Longer
It’s worth noting that right-wing networks have been running this international playbook for a decade. CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, has cultivated relationships with European populists for years. They held five annual conferences in Budapest specifically to strengthen ties with Orbán. They’ve promoted figures like Nigel Farage, who led Brexit and recently boosted a right-wing party that dominated Britain’s local elections.
CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp, when asked about the Pact of Free Cities, was surprisingly measured. He suggested American mayors are probably doing the right thing by organizing, though he questioned whether they’d learn much from struggling U.S. cities dealing with crime and homelessness. Fair point on the surface, but it misses something: grassroots organization that starts locally can scale nationally.
The White House didn’t engage substantively with any of this. Instead, a spokeswoman dismissed the effort as a “TDS publicity stunt” and suggested the mayors should focus on “safety and security” instead. It’s the kind of response that probably just validated everyone’s reason for going to Bratislava in the first place.
What This Actually Signals
The formation of these international coalitions reveals something important about modern politics: national boundaries matter less and less when ideology becomes the organizing principle. The right figured this out first. They built networks, shared strategies, and created feedback loops where success in one country informed tactics in another.
Now the left is playing catch-up. It’s not glamorous work. It doesn’t generate headlines back home. But Beaty was right that it’s worth doing. When cities face coordinated pressure from hostile national governments, isolated resistance tends to fail. Organized resistance informed by what’s worked elsewhere has a better shot.
The real question is whether American mayors can actually translate Budapest’s playbook into something that works in places like Cincinnati and San Antonio. Hungary’s victory over Orbán came after years of accumulated resistance and growing economic frustration. It wasn’t just about clever messaging on trash bins.
But at least now there’s a conversation happening. At least there’s a network. At least these mayors know they’re not alone in fighting the same battles.
That might not sound revolutionary. But in an era where political isolation is increasingly a strategic weapon, sometimes the most radical act is simply refusing to be isolated.
