Viktor Orban is a populist tyrant
Nobody should still pretend to be shocked that the Conservative Political Action Conference, an entity no longer “conservative” in any meaningful sense, would feature an appearance by an authoritarian leader like Viktor Orban.
The Hungarian autocrat is the idol of the international far Right.
He has repeatedly enjoyed the bootlicking attentions of Tucker Carlson on Fox News and indeed, CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp led his gang to celebrate Orban in Budapest earlier this year.
What makes Orban so alluring to the American far rightists is his example as an illiberal politician who, unlike their idol former President Donald Trump, has managed to corrupt Hungarian democracy so thoroughly as to guarantee his own continuing rule.
Trump attempted to steal the 2020 election by an assortment of tactics that included mob violence but failed (although he and his followers are poised to try again).
Trump complains about the news media, while Orban seized control of media outlets in Hungary and ruthlessly suppressed his critics.
Trump blurts out racist and antisemitic allusions, but Orban openly endorses bigotry against Jews, immigrants, gays and lesbians along with acts against the vulnerable targets of his Christian nationalist dogma — which echoes the fascist ideology that once ruled his homeland.
Both of these pseudo-populists decry “globalism,” whatever that means (and what it means can change instantly according to political convenience).
In short, the Orban regime is just what Republicans like Schlapp and Carlson envision for America’s future, with or without Trump himself.
Behind the aggressive rhetoric of the Budapest boss, however, lies a less imposing reality.
In Dallas, Orban exhorted the boisterous CPAC crowd to join his angry movement against “the globalists.”
That conspiratorial rubric includes the European Union, of course, despite the inconvenient fact that Hungary is an EU member state.
“We must take back the institutions in Washington and Brussels,” he thundered.
To the cowboy fascists, Orban must sound like one tough hombre — except that he is currently on his knees before the European authorities, ten-gallon hat in hand and thrust out as he pleads for their financial assistance.
Years of his incompetent rule have inflicted fiscal and monetary disaster on Hungary, and he is begging the “globalists” to bail him out.
But his admirers in the West are much too polite (and dishonest) to mention these embarrassing realities.
Americans should beware the populist temptation offered by thuggish politicians of Orban’s stripe.
They promise to lift up the “forgotten man,” whom they invariably betray in favor of plutocratic cronies and corrupt plunderers.
And they consistently seek to shift public anger toward minorities, immigrants, feminists, gays, transsexuals, public school teachers and any other scapegoats perceived as too weak to resist.
Not long before his CPAC appearance, Orban spoke on immigration in Romania, declaring that Europeans “do not want to become peoples of mixed race.”
So horrified was one of his closest advisers that she resigned publicly, denouncing that speech “a purely Nazi diatribe worthy of Joseph Goebbels.”
That sickening incident didn’t disturb his CPAC fans at all, of course. Everyone knows that’s what they like about him.