CHAPTER I THE COMMUNAL DILEMMA AS A CULTURAL RESOURCE IN HUNGARIAN POLITICAL EXPRESSION David Boromisza-Habashi ••••••• Let us begin with a seemingly simple question: how does public expression become political expression? There are simple, commonsense answers to this question. For example, when professional politicians speak in public, what they say constitutes political expression. When someone speaks publicly in an institutional setting commonly recognized as political-at a political rally, in a congressional committee meeting, or in the general assembly of a nation's parliament- we regard their speech as political expression. Public expression addressing political matters is also generally regarded as political talk. Often, the identity of the speaker, the institutional setting, and the topic of expression are indeed reliable indicators that political expression is taking place. How- ever, there are cases in which the political nature of expression is less obvious. Consider the widely publicized "private" conversation between the presidents of France and the United States at the G20 meeting in November 2011. Oblivi- ous to an open microphone in their vicinity, President Sarkozy referred to Is- raeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as a "liar;' and President Obama complained about "having to deal with" Netanyahu "every day." Once made public, did the utterances of these prominent political figures constitute political expression? Or when the president of the United States acknowledges an invited "ordinary citizen" during a State of the Union address and the citizen smiles, is that smile political speech? What about high school debaters addressing political issues Boromisza-Habashi, D. (2015). The communal dilemma as a cultural resource in Hungarian political expression. In R. Hariman, & R. Cintron (Eds.) Culture, catastrophe, and rhetoric: The texture of political action (pp. 25-46). Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books.