A headline is meant to capture the essence of a story and invite a potential reader to dive in. I’m terrible at headline writing. So I turn to our best headline writer on staff, Joel Abrams, who this week wrote one that perfectly described a story by scholar Gábor Scheiring: “I watched Hungary’s democracy dissolve into authoritarianism as a member of parliament − and I see troubling parallels in Trumpism and its appeal to workers.”

Scheiring, a Hungarian political sociologist who’s a fellow at Harvard University this year, had pitched us a story about populism that he wanted to write. But when I saw that he had been a member of Hungary’s Parliament when strongman Viktor Orbán took over as that country’s prime minister in 2010, I asked him to write about what it was like during that period.

Orbán is much admired by presidential candidate Donald Trump, and I felt that such a story could provide readers with a window on what happens when a democracy is led by a leader with authoritarian leanings. Scheiring’s analysis of how Orbán rose to power and then wielded it offers powerful lessons for the U.S.: “When the economy fails to deliver, disillusionment with capitalism morphs into an apathy toward liberal democracy. If the liberal center appears uncaring, authoritarian populists can mobilize voters against both the cultural and economic threats posed by globalization.”

The result in Hungary? “If the parliament is the political home of democracy, Hungary’s was vacant by 2012,” writes Scheiring. That happened in two years.