CPAC to Welcome Orban -- After He Gave a 'Pure Nazi' Speech
CPAC to Welcome Orban -- After He Gave a 'Pure Nazi' Speech
The Hungarian leader is a lodestar for U.S. conservatives.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has stayed in power with very little opposition since 2010, first winning election fair-and-square and then using gerrymandering and judicial manipulation to maintain a supermajority. With that supermajority, his party, Fidesz, has been able to push through virtually any constitutional changes it wants. He has antagonized liberals in Brussels, while E.U. institutions have been able to punish him very little. Because of his success, Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump have heaped praise on him -- and looked to him as a lodestar of how to govern in a Potemkin democracy and own the libs. This week, the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) is welcoming him as a speaker at their gathering in Dallas.
When the governing gets tough, Orban loves to pick cultural fights. Amid a coronavirus wave in late 2020, the government effectively banned adoption by same-sex parents. Still facing more criticism in 2021 on COVID, the government passed an anti-LGBT law which had echos of Russia's 2013 gay "propaganda" law. While his populist government mishandled the COVID pandemic, Orban has had more political success thriving on confrontation over issues of gender, sexuality, and migration.
Now, it's not COVID but the economy that is spelling trouble for Orban. Inflation is running at 11.7 percent, the currency is plunging, and the country faces fiscal woes related to EU funds frozen due to corruption concerns. While Orban is in a relatively good political position having won re-election in April, protests rocked Budapest in July over tax hikes on small businesses and the curtailing of an energy subsidy.
Amid these tough economic conditions, on July 23, Orban gave an openly racist speech. He spoke about a "mixed-race" world. "We are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed-race," he said. He added that countries were "no longer nations" after different races mixed. In addition, Orban appeared to make a crack about gas chambers in the Holocaust. Criticizing the European Union's plan to cut gas demand by 15 percent, he remarked, "the past shows us German know-how on that."
Orban's call for ethnic purity drew widespread condemnation. His adviser, Zsuzsa Hegedüs, who had been working for him over a decade, quit, calling his speech a "pure Nazi text" and “worthy of Goebbels." Yad Vashem issued a statement saying that Orban's words were "all too reminiscent of ideologies associated with the horrible atrocities of the Holocaust," calling on Hungary's government to "genuinely remember the Holocaust and effectively combat anti-Semitism and racism." The U.S. government and the E.U. also appeared to criticize the remarks, albeit obliquely through blanket condemnations of racism.
One quarter that did not criticize Orban's racist remarks was the group of U.S. conservatives that have become infatuated with him. Orban is speaking at CPAC on Aug. 4, along with the likes of Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz. “Let’s listen to the man speak,” CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp told Bloomberg News about Orban's remarks.
Orban has become something of an avatar for U.S. conservatives. Carlson has praised him fulsomely and interviewed him in Budapest, where he broadcast his Fox News show. Steve Bannon once called Orban "Trump before Trump." CPAC held a conference in Budapest this past May, banning almost all U.S. reporters from entering. (Having covered CPAC events in the early 2010s, it's quite a turnaround, as at that time there seemed to be more reporters than attendees.)
Orban is a maximally successful authoritarian in a system with the trappings of a democracy. Big governance problems like the economy or pandemics are not his strength. But he is able to distract from these challenges with fights over cultural identity. With the U.S. economy flashing red, it's a template that U.S. conservatives may look to emulate to hold onto power if they win back Congress later this year and the presidency in 2024 -- distracting from real problems with incendiary rhetoric and cultural fights, while maintaining control of all three branches of government.