Hakuna Matata is the name of a song from The Lion King. It is also a Swahili saying that means something like: “It’s okay, don’t worry. Chill.” It’s (often, but not always) a nice sentiment, and it’s a nice phrase. And it caught on.

Today, I was reading NYU Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s daily blog (it’s on Substack, and maybe that makes it a Substack and not a blog), and I am going to quote her. Actually that is not exactly correct, I am going to quote Kristof Szombati, whose wrote an essay that she published yesterday morning. (An aside: who is Szombati? I am not sure, but I bet he is somebody. That is my first Hungarian/English pun).

She describes Szombati as a “political anthropologist based in Berlin”, formerly involved in Hungarian politics. His interesting article concerns how Hungary is trying to recover from the Victor Orban era, and that is both interesting itself, but is perhaps more interesting as we know that we will have to figure out how to recover from the Donald Trump era, which will end in January 2029, or hopefully before. The description involves both a calling those who broke the law into account, and trying to recover billions of dollars which in various improper ways wound up in the bank accounts of Orban’s friends, as well as a restructuring of various government systems. It is a very complicated process, as you can imagine.

And the process needed a name. It seems to be being referred to as the “elszamoltatas”, which is Hungarian for something like “a calling to account”, and it is being used to refer to the entire process. Well, the process of elszamoltatas in Hungary, population approximately 10,000,000, is complicated, as somebody (or was it Szombati?) recently explained. And, if so, imagine how much more complicated it is going to be in the United States, population 350,000,000. I am not joking when I say that we should call this the American elszamoltatas. If hakuna matata can catch on, so can elszamoltatas. That should be obvious. And using the word provides us with three benefits: (1) we have a name to refer to when we are talking about detrumpification, (2) it gives the Hungarians, who beat us to the punch when they voted to deorbanize, and (3) it is really fun to say. Say it six times – three times out loud and three times to yourself and you will see what I mean.

But it is not time for elszamotatas yet. Instead, we wait to see how Donald responds to the refusal of the Supreme Court to allow him to interfere in state rules that allow for voting by mail. You know he will have something iup his sleeve. As of now, it appears there will be a Democratic wave. What more will he do to try to thwart that? There is talk about his supporters challenging every Democratic victory, and Speaker Mike refusing to swear in any Democrat whose victory is being challenged. Lawyers, be prepared. I guess I can worry about that. My bigger worry – I will lay it out here – is for the personal safety of Democratic candidates whose appear to be on the cusp of victory. I hope each of them is using common sense, and not taking unnecessary risks. I think them all in danger.