If you’re one of the world’s aspiring autocrats, coronavirus is Christmas in spring. No one has seized the opportunity more forcefully than Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who this week got Hungary’s parliament—where his right-wing Fidesz party commands a two-thirds supermajority—to pass him sweeping new powers to handle the coronavirus crisis. The mandate allows him to rule by decree, came with no expiration date, and with negligible oversight. Times of panic are prone to exploitation by political strongmen.