see url:
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/21/21256324/viktor-orban-hungary-american-conservatives
Quote<<<
Viktor Orbán dismantled Hungary’s democracy. Conservatives love him.
At dawn last Tuesday morning, the police took a man named András from
his home in northeastern Hungary. His alleged crime? Writing a Facebook
post that called the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, a “dictator.”
András has a point. After winning Hungary’s 2010 election, the prime
minister systematically dismantled the country’s democracy — undermining
the basic fairness of elections, packing the courts with cronies, and
taking control of more than 90 percent of the country’s media outlets.
He has openly described his form of government as “illiberal democracy,”
half of which is accurate.
Since the coronavirus, Orbán’s authoritarian tendencies have only grown
more pronounced. His allies in parliament passed a new law giving him
the power to rule by decree and creating a new crime, “spreading a
falsehood,” punishable by up to five years in prison. The Hungarian
government recently seized public funding that opposing political
parties depend on; through an ally, they took financial control of one
of the few remaining anti-Orbán media outlets. This month, the
pro-democracy group Freedom House officially announced that it no longer
considered Hungary a democracy.
András was detained for hours for daring to criticize this authoritarian
drift. The 64-year-old was ultimately released, but the police’s
official statement on the arrest noted that “a malicious or
ill-considered share on the internet could constitute a crime.” András,
for one, got the message.
“I told [the cops] their task had achieved its result and would probably
shut me up,” he told the news site 444.
András’s arrest is an unusually naked display of what Hungary has become
— a cautionary tale for what a certain kind of right-wing populist will
do when given unchecked political power. Yet among a certain segment of
American conservatives, Orbán is not viewed as a warning.
He’s viewed as a role model.
Orbán’s fans in the West include notable writers at major conservative
and right-leaning publications like National Review, the American
Conservative, and the New York Post. Christopher Caldwell, a journalist
widely respected on the right, wrote a lengthy feature praising the
strongman as a leader “blessed with almost every political gift.”
Patrick Deneen, perhaps the most prominent conservative political
theorist in America, met with Orbán in his office during a trip to
Budapest. He has described the Hungarian government as a “model” for
some American conservatives. (Responding to a request for comment after
this piece was published, Deneen clarified: “I have not endorsed the
Orbán government...mainly because I do not know Hungarian politics well
enough to praise or condemn.”)
Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist and right-wing cultural icon,
made a pilgrimage to the prime minister’s office. Chris DeMuth, the
former head of the American Enterprise Institute, interviewed Orbán
onstage at a conference, praising the prime minister in opening remarks
as “not only a political but an intellectual leader.” The event was
organized by Yoram Hazony, an Israeli intellectual widely influential on
the American right and another vocal Orbán fan.
The Hungarian government has actively cultivated support from such
international conservatives. John O’Sullivan, an Anglo-American
contributor to National Review, is currently based at the Danube
Institute — a think tank in Budapest that O’Sullivan admits receives
funding from the Hungarian government.
Pro-Orbán Westerners tend to come from one of two overlapping camps in
modern conservatism: religiously minded social conservatives and
conservative nationalists.
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