>you have a country with wildly different ideas than others (now Hungary, a few years ago Poland)
Why single out Hungary and Poland specifically? Is it worse than when Austria, Netherlands, France, etc. have a different opinion to the rest of the union and torpedo progress just to pander to the right wingers in their country?
Leaving aside personal preferences regarding the previous Polish and current Hungarian governments, the electoral processes are generally viewed as fair regarding the absence of major direct fraud related to vote counting. However, the fact is, that the state resources were used by the ruling parties to promote themselves.
The removal of the former Polish government was largely driven by public disapproval of state fund mismanagement. In Hungary, a key element of the current government's platform appears to be the promotion of national identity, including ties with diaspora communities formed after WWI (The Treaty of Trianon), potentially with implications for future "geopolitical alignments" (the likelihood of which is debatable).
These results, while influenced by the d'Hondt system, reflect the sentiment of the voting population, which is a democratic process, in principle. The ruling methods are not 100% democratic though (rule of majority with respect for minority rights)
However, the opinions of my "more Western friends" on those topics "diverge from on-the-ground realities".
Still, Hungary and Poland are consistently brought in as the bad apples for opposing mass migration quotas, and recently Hungary for the milder tone towards Russia, but it's ignored that everyday plenty of countries oppose many other resolutions.
That's hilarious (not), given that so much discourse is about just how much democracy should be shaved off to get the desirable Democratic(tm) results (Supermajority for Brexit! Ban AFD! et al.).
How are they authoritans? Do you just look at the optics, or do you look at the damage done to the EU in monetary terms? Because those are two different things?
Why single out Hungary and Poland specifically? Is it worse than when Austria, Netherlands, France, etc. have a different opinion to the rest of the union and torpedo progress just to pander to the right wingers in their country?