The U.S. right has long had soft spots for and love affairs with European authoritarian leaders, from Portugal’s Antonio Salazar to Spain’s Francisco Franco, from flirting with Adolph Hitler and Italy’s Benito Mussolini, conservatives anyone that might suppress the left in their countries. Now they have a modern-day Christian nationalist authoritarian leader to fawn over, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. And that’s exactly what the Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson did last week during his trek to The U.S. right has long had soft spots for European authoritarian dictators, from Portugal’s Antonio Salazar to Spain’s Franco, from flirting with Adolph Hitler and Italy’s Benito Mussolini. Now they have a modern-day authoritarian to fawn over, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Hungary.
In Matthew 22:23-30, Jesus tells a group of questioners, "For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” Fast forward 2000-+ years and although they will never marry, the Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson and Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán have developed a symbiotic relationship; a marriage of reactionary media and Christian nationalism. Carlson and Orbán have become masters of demonizing out groups, targeting migrants, inflaming White nationalism, creating external enemies, whipping up conspiracy theories, supporting rigged elections. They are building a textbook for illiberal authoritarian democracy. This is a marriage of anti-democratic comrades; like-minded authoritarian opportunists. This might be one of those Marriages made in heaven! (The dictionary defines a marriage made in heaven as “a relationship or pairing where each member perfectly complements the other.”)
A few days ago, Orbán posted a photo of he and Carlson on Facebook. Carlson was in Budapest to broadcast his television show – the most watched cable news show -- while speaking at MCC Feszt, which according to TPM is “an event hosted by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, which the New York Times described in June as a government-funded plan to “train a conservative future elite.’” Carlson’s talk was billed as “The World According to Tucker Carlson.”
On one of his shows, Carlson declared: “If you care about Western civilization and democracy and families and the ferocious assault on all three of those things by the leaders of our global institutions, you should know what is happening here right now.”
The New York Times’ Benjamin Novak and Michael M. Grynbaum wrote, “For Mr. Carlson, the Hungary trip was an opportunity to put Mr. Orbán, whom he admires, on the map for his viewers back home, a conservative audience that may be open to the sort of illiberalism promoted by the Hungarian leader.”
According to Vox’s Zack Beauchamp (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/8/5/22607465/tucker-carlson-hungary-orban-authoritarianism-democracy-backsliding) Carlson told viewers that “if you care about Western civilization, and democracy, and family — and the ferocious assault on all three of those things by leaders of our global institutions,” you should pay close attention to Hungary.
As NBC News’ Casey Michael reported (https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/connecting-fox-news-tucker-carlson-hungary-trump-ncna1276237), Prime Minister Orbán recently “scored arguably his biggest coup to date — and showed precisely the direction the Trumpian base is ready to move in.”
In an early-August “Letters from an American” post, the historian Heather Cox
Richardson wrote: “Hungary is a country in central Europe of about 10 million people who have, in the decade since Orbán took power for the second time, watched their democracy erode. On paper, Hungary is a democracy in that it still holds elections, but it is, in fact, a one-party state overseen by the prime minister.”
Richardson added: Orbán “wants to replace the multiculturalism at the heart of democracy with Christian culture, stop the immigration that he believes undermines Hungarian culture, and reject ‘adaptable family models’ with ‘the Christian family model.”’
TPM’s Josh Kovensky reported, “Orbán has characterized his approach to governance as ‘illiberal democracy.’ He has both alarmed pro-democracy activists in Europe while also offering American observers of Trump a useful analogue for democratic backsliding. Orbán’s government has used anti-Semitic imagery to demonize George Soros, a native of the country, while also pressuring universities associated with him to close. Orbán has also gone out of his way to clamp down on LGBT rights during his tenure.”
Orbán’s successful transformation of Hungary has led to Transparency International ranking Hungary lower than dictatorships like Belarus or Cuba in its Corruption Perceptions Index. Last year, Freedom House said that Orbán’s government had “dropped any pretense of respecting democratic institutions.” Reporters Without Borders named Orbán an “enemy of press freedom.”
So does Carlson’s relationship with Orbán matter? According to Vox’s Beauchamp, “many conservative intellectuals in America have come to see the Orbán regime as a model for America. These right-wing observers, typically social conservatives and nationalists, see Orbán’s willingness to use state power against the LGBT community, academics, the press, and immigrants as an example of how conservatives can fight back against left-wing cultural power. They either deny Fidesz’s authoritarian streak or, more chillingly, argue that it’s necessary to defeat the left — a chilling move at a time when the GOP is waging war on American democracy, using tactics eerily reminiscent of the ones Fidesz successfully deployed against Hungary’s democratic institutions.”
“Hungary is not a democracy anymore,” Zsuzsanna Szelényi, a former Hungarian member from Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s party, told Vox in 2018. “The parliament is a decoration for a one-party state.”
It is clear from Carlson’s trip – fully sanctioned by Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch – that the right has fallen in love with Hungary. Conservatives may soon be trading in the MAGA caps for a newly minted MALH (Make America Like Hungary) cap.
