Long Before Hungary, the Right Was Fixated on Another Country
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JOSHUA TAIT argues: Long Before Hungary, the Right Was Fixated on Another Country.
Prominent conservatives have discovered Hungary and its âtwenty-first century dictator,â Viktor OrbĂĄn. This week, Tucker Carlson will be relocating his top-rated show to Hungary, as he did for a week last August, bringing OrbĂĄn into the homes of hundreds of thousands of Fox viewers.
Carlson may be the most high-profile conservative to alight on Hungary, but heâs far from the first. Christopher Caldwell profiled OrbĂĄn in the Claremont Review of Books in 2019; former National Review editor John OâSullivan moved to Budapest, where he has run the Danube Institute, a think tank funded by OrbĂĄnâs government, since 2017; the American Conservativeâs Rod Dreher spent four months last year in Budapest under the auspices of the Danube Institute, largely singing its praises; while a number of others, including Patrick Deneen, Chris DeMuth, Sohrab Ahmari, Yoram Hazony, and Jordan Peterson have made pilgrimages, in several cases meeting with OrbĂĄn himself. Early this year, Donald Trump endorsed OrbĂĄn for re-election.
Hungaryâs appeal to the American right is straightforward. Among the worldâs leaders, Tucker Carlson pronounced, only OrbĂĄn identifies as a Western conservative. He takes pride in standing athwart European Union integration, internationalism, immigration, and âwokeism.â He champions the Hungarian nation and the Christian West.
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