The New Yorker Radio Hour - Why Do Conservatives Love Hungary’s Viktor Orbán?

Episode Date: June 27, 2022

When the New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz first heard that the Conservative Political Action Conference, the flagship event of the American conservative movement, was holding a meeting in Hungary, he thought it might be a joke. “A lot of people have worried for a few years now that the Republican Party is becoming more ambivalent about certain bedrock norms of American democracy,” Marantz told David Remnick. “To openly state, ‘We’re going to this semi-authoritarian country’ . . .  I thought it was maybe a troll.” But C.P.A.C. Hungary was very real, and the event demonstrated an increasingly close relationship between American conservatives and authoritarians abroad. Viktor Orbán wins elections and claims a democratic mandate, but his legislative maneuvers and rewrites to the constitution have rendered political opposition increasingly powerless. Marantz finds the admiration for him by many in America unsettling. “I couldn’t really imagine a Putin-style takeover” of power in America, Marantz says; but “this kind of technical, legalistic Orbán model” seems all too plausible. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The January 6th Committee has laid bare in withering detail. Donald Trump's attempt to overturn a free and fair election. But Trump had been showing his contempt for the democratic process all along. He made headlines again and again, praising strong men like Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines. And Trump's admiration for Vladimir Putin, a genius he recently called Putin, often embarrassed Republicans. But a much wider group of conservatives has come to admire another autocrat from the former Soviet bloc,

a leader who has done everything in his power to shut down free media and keep immigrants out of his country. Thank you very much. It's a great honor to have with us the Prime Minister of Hungary. and Victor Orban has done a tremendous job in so many different ways, highly respected, respected all over Europe. Probably like me, a little bit controversial, but that's okay. That's okay. You've done a good job, and you've kept your country safe. Many have called Victor Orban a despot, an authoritarian who has changed Hungary's constitution several times now in order to get his way. But there was Orban with Donald Trump in the White House in 2019. So many changes are going on, and we have some similar approaches.

And I would like to express that we are proud to stand together with the United States on fighting against illegal migration, on terrorism, and to protect and help the Christian communities all around the world. As with so much in politics these days, what once seems startling is now a common point. Hey, it's Tucker Carlson. Greetings to Hungarian CPAC. I can't believe you're in Budapest and I am not. What a wonderful country. Last month, the conservative political action conference, one of America's most significant political gatherings, went to Budapest. And you know why you can tell it's a wonderful country? Because the people who have turned our country into a much less good place are hysterical when you pointed out. The last thing they want is any kind of signpost to a better way. Hungary certainly provides that.

But you've got to ask, what do conservatives see when they look at Orban's Hungary? If that country is some sort of signpost, in what direction is it pointing? That's the question that made Andrew Moran's fly to Budapest and report on the CPAC Hungary Convention. Andrew, welcome back. You've been covering the right for a long time for the magazine. What was your first thought when you heard that Hungary, of all places, was going to host a CPAC event? Honestly, I kind of thought it was a joke, maybe. It's just sort of so on the nose. The idea that this, you know, you don't have to follow this very closely to know that Hungary is like a pretty authoritarian place. And obviously a lot of people have worried for a few years now that the Republican Party is becoming more kind of ambivalent about certain bedrock. norms of American democracy. So to openly state we're going to go to this semi-authoritarian country,

it just seemed kind of, I thought it was maybe a troll or something, but it was very real. You've covered CPAC events in America before. How was covering CPAC in Hungary any different? Was it easy to get in, for example? It was not. I mean, the sort of basic free press instinct that American conservatives have that even if you're my so-called enemy in the culture war, it's not really a question that I'm going to let you cover my event. That assumption did not exist in Hungary. Actually, by the time I got to Hungary, I still didn't have a press pass. And this was kind of parallel to what I was hearing a lot of people on the ground saying, which was a lot of things in places like Hungary operate by what I heard people call bureaucratic

gaslighting. Right. So they'll tell you, yes, of course, we'd love to have you come, but then they keep saying, I'm sorry, there's not enough room, maybe next time. And that was what kept happening to me. So eventually my requests were denied, and there was essentially no recourse. They said, you know, it's a private event and we don't want you to attend. But in the end, you found your way in. Yeah, I found a way. You know, I actually had someone passed me a badge and just sort of walked in that way. So, and then it sort of seemed like by the time I was in there, it would have been too embarrassing to kick me out. So they kind of said, oh, welcome, here you are.

Is this the event? Which way is the sticker? Oh, here, okay, thank you. Distinguished, ladies and gentlemen, my dear American friends and conservatives from all around the world who have gathered here today, a very warm welcome. So at the big opening event,

Victor Orban gave the keynote speech, and I think most people only really became familiar with Orban in the last five years. We know that Donald Trump was a big fan, but who is Victor Orban? How did he come to power in Hungary? Well, initially, when he was first elected in 1998, he was sort of a champion of liberal democracy in the region. Bill Clinton had him to the White House and said, this is a very exciting, you know, champion of open society. He actually studied at Oxford on a Soros scholarship. Then he lost in 2002, and it sort of apparently shattered him, and he vowed to just do whatever it took to never lose power again. And in his case, what that meant was returning in 2010, setting up a more and more semi-autocratic system and turning, in his words, against liberal democracy and toward what he calls illiberal democracy. What's changed in Hungary since Orban took power?

So one of the interesting and kind of shocking things about this is that you could go to Hungary and actually never know that people think of it as an authoritarian place. You're not going to see gulags. You're not going to see people hauled off by secret police on a daily basis. There are universities in Hungary. Now, if you pay attention to the fine print, you know that the main independent university in Hungary was forced out. and is now in exile in Vienna. Other universities are under the subtle control of some of Orban's political allies. There are still courts, but if you pay close attention, the independence of the judiciary

has been chipped away at over the years. There is media that runs critical stuff about Orban, but they might find that their advertising revenue gets squeezed or that their ownership changes to people who are more in favor of the regime. You can be gay in Hungary, but you can't get married or you can't adopt children. And the Hungarian government says these are popular policies, and we don't care if other countries don't like it. So their claim always is we have our democratic mandate and we're using it. There's nothing illegal about what we're doing.

You just don't like the result. But what about that mandate? How big have Orban's electoral victory's been exactly? And given the way you talk about how he's consolidated power, how legitimate are are those elections? How much do they reflect the real will of the Hungarian people? In the last election, he got about half of the popular vote a little more, and they ended up with more than two-thirds of the seats in parliament, which is a supermajority that allows them to amend the Constitution. He also has a kind of informal control over the media that makes it

almost impossible if you're a normal Hungarian to find the opposition's message unless you go looking for it. So yes, people are voting for him. And yes, he's popular, especially in rural areas and things like that. But, you know, he's doing a lot to make sure that the opposition can't get a foothold. That, again, it's not technically illegal, but it's not exactly a level playing field. Well, let's hear a little bit from Orban's keynote speech. How can I pitch in? How can I contribute to this meeting today? Well, perhaps if I told you how we won. How we defeated first the communist system and then how we defeated the liberals and just most recently how we defeated the unified troops of the international liberal left

in at the elections. So I will tell you how we defeated them once, twice, third, four, fifth time and how we're going to defeat them again. As they say at the football pitch, more, more, more, the sky's the limit. It sounds kind of Trumpian. Oh, very, yeah. Steve Bannon famously called Orban Trump before Trump. And now it sort of seems like they're looking to him as a Trump after Trump. What would a more diligent, patient, frankly, smarter, more energetic version of that look like?

And Orban provides... What did it sound like? What did Orban give the CPAC audience in terms of a game plan for defeating liberalism? He was pretty clear. He said, you need your own. media, you need to control the universities, which he's done. His main thing is sort of what he calls national sovereignty, which means essentially don't let international bureaucrats tell you what to do when it comes to, you know, respecting human rights at the border or respecting gay rights or any of that stuff.

Do what you want to do as a country, which in Hungary's case means don't let same-sex couples adopt, don't allow asylum seekers to come seek asylum in your country. And whenever he's called on this, he says, well, this is my democratic mandate. Who are you to tell me what to do? Yeah, what were you seeing on the floor of the convention? It was much quieter than the one in Orlando. It wasn't the three-ring circus of triggering the libs. It was much more, you know, formally dressed people handing out, you know, thick, glossy brochures and things. But there were a few signs of the kind of more circusy element of politics where they would get into, you know, culture war issues, which frankly, they, I think, have learned from the Americans how to do.

Yeah, sure. We have very great stuff. Okay, good. It says, let's go, Brandon. Yes, of course, yes. That's great. There is this never trust the left. Good, thank you.

And there is this one which shows the prime minister, Victor Orban. Ah, gatekeeper of the West. Yeah, who is the gatekeeper of the West. Very nice. Thank you. So, yes, you're welcome. We also have great book. Who was there from the American side?

Were there a lot of big names from the far right and the conservative, most conservative wing of the Republican Party? Yeah, well, it was actually kind of a big tent. I mean, Candice Owens was there, the very fiery YouTube culture warrior. She was eight months pregnant. She was there with her husband, who is the CEO of Parlor, which is a kind of free speech, absolutist social network. But you also had, you know, Rick Santorum was there, the former Pennsylvania senator.

You had people from Project Veritas. You had people from, you know, immigration think tanks. Trump gave a, you know, one-minute address. How was that short video received? by the Hungarians and the Americans in the audience. Oh, they loved it. I mean, it was, you know, he didn't have a lot of specifics to say. He basically said Orban's a great guy.

We are very close, as you know, all of us, to Victor Orban. He's a great leader, a great gentleman, and he just had a very big election result. I was very honored to endorse him. A little unusual endorsement. You know, a lot of this is a kind of PR campaign for Orban, right? He wants to be a big player. and so if you have big names, you know, touting you, then you're a big player in the region. But there were more substantive speeches from people who were really sort of trying to stitch together

what an American urbanism would look like. So some of it was just ruffling feathers, but some of it was really saying, okay, which parts of this model actually could we import? I'm talking with staff writer Andrew Morance, and we'll continue in a moment. Now, you met a number of young American conservatives, including someone named Gavin Wax. Who is that? Gavin Wax is in his 20s. He's the president of the New York Young Republican Club, which, you know, back in the day, was a Reaganite, you know, sort of slightly country club Republican sort of vibe.

And then after Trump, there was a kind of internal takeover. And Gavin and his friends made it a much more bellicose-trumpy sort of thing. and they actually went out of their way to endorse both Trump and Victor Orban for their re-election campaigns. So I guess there's no mystery as to why Gavin Wax was invited to the Budapest session of CPAC. Yeah, yeah. They tend to like people who, you know, give them warm fuzzy press. They invited us. They gave us a booth. They gave me a speaking slot. We met with the ambassador from Hungary in D.C. They invited us for a personal hour reception with him and his wife. so they have taken a keen interest in our club and what we're doing,

what we're trying to build in terms of international. Why has Hungary become the focus of the right? Why is the first CPAC happening here? Like, why here? I mean, I think there's a few reasons. I mean, I think Hungary is, the government of Hungary is actively putting a lot of efforts to make sure that they become this sort of beacon of international conservatism. I think on the ground here, there's been a lot of success politically here in Hungary

under the Orban administration. that can't really be said about a lot of other countries. And I think they've just done a very good job of reaching out to the American conservative movement that just simply hasn't been happening in other countries in Europe or abroad. Maybe it's a cultural thing. Maybe it's a language thing. I'm not exactly sure. But they've seized the moment, certainly.

Now, it seems to me shocking to see a full outward embrace by American conservatives, young American conservatives of an authoritarian leader like Victor Orban. Yeah, it actually is. is shocking and it should be shocking. But of course, that's not how someone like Wax would see it. I would reject that. I don't think this is an authoritarian country. I think it's, it is a democratic country that elected a right-wing government. And some people don't like that they elected a right-wing government that is governing in a right-wing fashion. But if you claim to be a supportive democracy, or if you want to say your support of democracy with certain limits, then that's fine. I agree with you.

But if he has violated those limits constitutionally, if he has violated limits in terms of higher education policy, in terms of media policy, in terms of immigration policy, then I have disagreements with a lot of left-wing governments in many countries that violate those things. I'm not going to claim that those countries are non-democratic. Boy, how prevalent is this argument that Hungary is merely run by a conservative right-wing government but is essentially democratic? How prevalent is that argument among American conservatives? Yeah, you hear it all the time. This is just sour-grade. you know, the liberal world order is just mad that a conservative government is executing its

agenda. And I have to say, Orban has played his hand extremely well because he does things so technically and so by the books and so methodically that you actually can't say he's broken the law. He has changed the law first and then done what he wants within the law that he has changed, right? But that's not technically illegal. It's not technically undemocratic, right? So you get into this weird semantic thing where you start to argue first principles and you can't actually point to anything he's done that's specifically unconstitutional. He just rewrote the Constitution. Look, I think what's developing in a place like Hungary and in the U.S. is a sort of intellectual movement, but behind the Trump electoral win. I think Trump sort of won. He was kind of an idiosyncratic

candidate. He was very unique. He was very different than what we've been used to. But there really wasn't a cohesive ideology behind him. But I do think that what's forming in a place like an event like this at CPAC Hungary and another similar venues is a sort of, you know, codification of an ideology behind Trumpism, behind urbanism, behind, you know, these right-wing populist movements behind Brexit. I think there was sort of a quiet consensus that Trump was a pretty feckless, lazy leader. You know, his heart may have been in the right place by their lights, but he didn't get things done. And so when you talk about American Orbanism, you're much more likely to hear people talk about Ron DeSantis, you know, maybe someone like J.D. Vance, maybe someone like Josh Hawley. In fact, Ron DeSantis apparently looks to Hungary as a legislative model. There has been some chatter that the don't say gay bill in Florida was explicitly modeled on anti-gay legislation that was passed in Hungary the year before.

Did you leave Budapest with a different or new understanding of the American conservative movement? Yeah, a more disquieting one, frankly. Because, you know, there is this constant debate over what is alarmism, what is hysteria, and what is real. And I couldn't really imagine, you know, a Putin-style takeover or a, you know, 1930s style takeover. I mean, those are sort of outdated reference at this point. And so I could sort of comfort myself by saying, well, that's not a kind of thing that will probably happen here. But this kind of very technical, legalistic Orban model I actually totally can see happening here. There are differences, but the similarities were pretty striking.

How would that happen? How would that work? So some of it, you could argue, has already happened, right? You could imagine an extremely gerrymandered electoral map, which we clearly already have. very sharp negative partisanship, very sharp polarization, people living in different epistemic universes. Then, you know, let's imagine that you want to change the courts without abolishing the courts, but you want to just deprive the opposition party of a chance to seat one of its nominees, and then you want to ram through your own nominees, right? That's something we've already seen happen.

And again, you don't wake up one day and there's no Supreme Court. you just chip away at the institutional legitimacy. You know, again and again, I would talk to Hungarians, and they would say, look, I don't want to alarm you. But it's not hard for me to imagine you being essentially at the top of the slippery slope that we were at 12 years ago. And in fact, one guy just said to me, you're looking at your worst nightmare. Andrew Morrance, thanks so much. Thanks, David. Andrew Morantz is a staff writer for the New Yorker, and he's the author of the book, Anti-Social, which is about

extremism and the Internet. I'm David Remnick, and that's our program. I want to thank you for joining us. See you soon. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts,

with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Avae Carrillo, Brita Green, Calilea, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, and Gophane and Putibuele. With help from Alison McAdam, David Gable, Harrison Keithline, Alex Parrish, Victor Gwan, and Mengfei Chen. We had additional help this week from Michael May.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.