Patti and guest co-host Dan Schaefer are joined by Barbara F. Walter, professor of International Affairs at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. She is the author of the book “How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them.”

Walter told WCPT that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán "has kind of written the playbook of how you can do a nonmilitary, nonviolent and legal coup in democracies, where you get yourself elected. [T]hese individuals . . . are often quite popular. They win elections. And then, once they get in power, they slowly and systematically begin to unravel the guardrails of democracy, and before citizens know it, suddenly they're like, geez, we've lost a fair amount of rights and we've lost some freedoms, and geez, the press isn't free anymore, and opposition leaders keep disappearing, and the judicial system has been weaponized. And by the time citizens realize it, they often don't have the power to reverse it. And Trump clearly has been enamored with Viktor Orbán. And some of the things that Trump has said he's going to do when he when he comes into the White House are kind of straight out of Orbán's playbook.

Catch "Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez" weekdays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/driving-it-home).