Today, Explained - Why the right is thirsty for Hungary

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

The Conservative Political Action Conference, which is like Republican Coachella, is usually held stateside, but this week it's throwing a party in Budapest, Hungary. Noel King got kicked out. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan with Haleema Shah, edited by Jolie Myers and Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and Victoria Dominguez, engineered by Paul Mounsey and Efim Shapiro, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's Today Explained. I'm Sean Ramos-Firm. I'm here with Noelle King, but she's in Budapest, Hungary, where weirdly there is an American conservative political conference happening. Yeah, the conservative political action conference is having kind of a franchise event here. I was very excited about it. Listen to a couple of these CPAC themes or panels, Sean. Western civilization under attack. Culture wars in the media. The father is a man. The mother is a woman. There's not a single panel that I can see about free markets or small business or lower taxes. It sounds like a new kind of American republicanism. Yes, exactly.

So how was the conference? Was it a weird scene? Can I play you something? Yes. May I ask a follow-up, please? I... No follow-ups? What's going on?

I got kicked out of CPAC. You got kicked out of CPAC? Hungry. That's enough. Thank you. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings.

Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. And I got kicked out of CPAC Hungary. Today Explained producer Miles Bryan spent weeks applying for press credentials for CPAC. So many emails. He got no response. So we showed up and they told us,

you were supposed to apply for credentials for CPAC. But we did. No dice. So anyway, I strolled in and came upon a press conference. Excuse me, are you taking questions from the press? CPAC chair Matt Schlapp was talking about freedom. Hello, I have a question for Mr. Schlapp. My name is Noelle King. He answered my question. Too often the American government feels it's its job to dictate to other countries. And then I was ejected from CPAC Hungary. Next day, same deal.

Couldn't stroll in this time. There was too much security. Other reporters were outside too. I don't think we're getting in. There was an American representative of CPAC outside who told us, Hungarian conference, Hungarian rules. And those partners are the ones

who make the operational decisions. Anyway, freedom or something. Of course, the point of the CPAC conference is the ideas. I'd arranged an interview with two men who were going to be at CPAC, and I got a hold of them before they vanished inside. István Kis is Hungarian. He's the executive director of the Danube Institute, which is a conservative think tank in Budapest. Gladden Papin is American. He's an associate professor of politics at the University of Dallas, and he's spending a year in Budapest on a fellowship. These are ideas, guys. They are not politicians, and they're a particular type of conservative. As you're going to hear, they're not the type that wants free

markets and small government. They want the government involved in our lives. One example, Hungary wants a bigger population. So the government gives loans and tax breaks and other benefits to Hungarians and gets more generous the more kids you have. István thinks Hungary can teach that. Gladden thinks the U.S. should learn it. What is the purpose of the CPAC conference

as far as you're concerned? Well, the Republican Party has always been a more individualistic party. It focuses on lowering tax rates, making gestures toward traditional family structures, and maybe engaging in foreign interventions. Hungarian conservatism, European conservatism is very different. There's a strong social welfare state tradition in Europe. But in Hungary, that's been turned toward supporting traditional families and really supporting their own conservative voter base, I guess. So it represents a different kind of conservatism, different kind of approach to politics that's less individualistic. And I think that that is

causing a lot of American conservatives to come over and see what's going on. I imagine there's another type of American conservative that's a little freaked out by this. The idea of the Republican Party, the traditional Republican Party, kind of lining up behind the idea of a social welfare state. I mean, this is the party of free markets. Am I out of the loop? No, you're right. Look, I think there are some elements of the Hungarian conservative policy that are immediately appealing to American conservatives, like, you know, Trump talked about building a wall and, you know, Hungary in 2015 actually did build a wall on its southern

border. So there's some obvious overlap there. But you're right, these programs that support families in Hungary involve amounts of money that would probably make some Democrats blush in the United States. I think that some American conservatives have started to realize that their earlier policy of supporting whatever big corporations do isn't working in their interest anymore. That's causing some tension within the party because the old donor base that drove the policies of the 1980s and 1990s is still there. But we live at a time in the United States now where young people are having trouble imagining purchasing a house. And so when you look at the Hungarian pro-family policy, it's really about enabling people to make that first step into a responsible homeownership or building or expanding a house.

And so I think there is a lot of new interest in what that looks like among American conservatives. Prime Minister Viktor Orban calls Hungary a Christian democracy. Istvan, what does this mean? Well, I think a lot of people confuse this with, you know, Hungary being a Christian state. And that's not the same. I think he's always talking about Hungary and, broadly speaking, Europe being a continent, a country which is based on Christian values, which most of the population share. These people might not be church-going people,

they might not be over-religious in their everyday life, but still if you look at the actual statistics, even broadly in Europe, there is about 70-80% of people who identify themselves as Christians. And by advocating Christian democracy, I think he's more looking at these are our shared values, which we have to protect, which we have to try to support. And this might be an alternative to liberal democracy.

Prime Minister Orban and Fidesz, his party, have changed some of the laws in Hungary so that they make life more difficult for LGBTQ people. There is a law that prevents the teaching of anything that involves homosexuality in schools. American listeners will be very familiar with this from Florida and from the United States. But I think the overarching criticism is Christianity, okay, fine. But if you're using Christianity to make laws and policies that disadvantage or even persecute LGBTQ people, you've got a real problem. What do you think? I think that you might say that

there's some discrimination against LGBTQ people. But in Hungary, homosexuals can actually live in civil partnership and have 99% of the same rights as people who are married. In the United States, that reads as discrimination. Among many people, that reads as discrimination. In your mind, is that not discrimination? It's hard to say. I think here, because in our constitution, and because most of the people believe that marriage is between a man and a woman,

we do not feel that this is overly discriminating against these people because they can still have the civil partnership and they can still have, as I said, 99% of the same rights and benefits as, let's say, ordinary heterosexual couples have. Gladden, I want to get the American perspective on this because you know that in the United States, what we might call marginalized groups or once marginalized groups, LGBTQ people would be included in that, they have fought to get rights. They have fought to be treated equally. And here we are in Hungary, where Istvan has just said, you might call this a little bit discriminatory. It's a minority of people who

are being discriminated against with a particular policy, but those people are still part of the country. They're still part of Hungarian society or American society. Isn't democracy about pluralism? I think it's clear that, you know, most Americans want to live in a fair and pluralistic society. But I think it's become clear over time that the question is, what are the basic forms of family that are in the driver's seat? To be honest, I think a lot of American conservatives and just ordinary American people feel that some very, very small groups of sexual minorities have maybe had an outsized impact on the way that education is undertaken and maybe some other elements of public life. So, Hungary has a different approach. It is establishing a norm that the family is

constituted of a mother and a father. Let's be honest, this was the norm in the Western world until approximately 7 to 10 years ago, so it's not like a big stretch or something that's completely strange. I think in liberal democracies now, actually it's more like the tyranny of the minorities. I mean, in America, you had states where you had popular referendums about this, and most of these states voted against same-sex marriage. And then you took it up to the Supreme Court, which we all know is an unelected body, and they approved that, yes, you can have same-sex

marriage. In my mind, that's undemocratic. Gladden, as an American from a country where checks and balances really are part of what we do well or what historically we have done well, where our constitution is sacred in a lot of ways. You've been living in Hungary. You're aware of the criticisms that Viktor Orban has too much power in too many areas. Do you see that at all? Are you willing to see that at all? You know, I grew up in Arkansas. Let's look at Arkansas today. If the Republicans win every seat in the Arkansas House of Representatives, if they win every district, then there are no Democrats in the House of Representatives. If Fidesz wins all districts, which it didn't, there are going to be seats for the opposition in parliament. From an American standpoint, America is much more, potentially much more majoritarian in particular states. There's this proportional representation thing, which is hard to understand. But even if Fidesz were to win every district in the country, there would be a large number of seats reserved for the opposition. I was reading Viktor Orban's inaugural

speech, the one he gave after he won the election. Quote, the suicidal waves of the Western world belong to the picture of the war-torn decade ahead of us. I see as such a suicide attempt, the great European population exchange program, which wants to make up for the lacking or missing European Christian children with adults, migrants arriving from other civilizations. This is replacement theory. I imagine you're both aware that last weekend, a young man in Buffalo, New York, walked into a supermarket and shot and killed 10 people. He was deliberately targeting Black people. This young man was a devotee of this idea that white Americans, white people are being replaced with minorities. I hear the Prime Minister of Hungary saying something that is effectively replacement theory. We are at CPAC.

Tucker Carlson will be beaming in soon. Tucker Carlson also a big proponent of replacement theory. How do you not hear a statement like that from the prime minister of this country or from Tucker Carlson, a fellow attendee, and not really feel like there's something wrong here? Well, I think that Hungary is a country with a unique history that really does need to preserve its traditional nation. If Hungary changes, then Hungary no longer exists. If Hungary changes, it becomes Germany, it becomes France. If Hungary changes, it becomes another European country. That's not a category.

Is that good? And if you don't want that, then isn't it our right to don't want it? So Hungary is a small nation. We are surrounded with Slavic people, German people. Even in the Middle Ages or the 18th century, you always had these poems, literature works, which were talking about how Hungary will disappear. They'll be washed away by the Slavic wave.

You might think that this is something from history. It's no longer important. will disappear. You know, they'll be washed away by the Slavic wave. You might think that this is, you know, something from history. It's no longer important. But I think most Hungarians still think it is important. And they would like to preserve this culture and heritage. Coming up next, we bring what we've learned in Hungary to a colleague at Vox who's been watching this country for years. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Thank you. Thanks for having me. $50 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, R-A-M-P.com slash explained. Cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC, terms and conditions apply. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long.

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an authorized gaming partner of the NBA. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager ontario only please play responsibly if you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you please contact connex ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge betmgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. All right, Zach, can we just start with a heavy sigh about Hungary? Zach Beecham, my partner in size, senior correspondent at Vox. I'm in a co-working space in Budapest because the internet at my hotel betrayed me. And I'm glad that we've got you on the line because you've

been reporting on Hungary for years, and I've been here for a few days. And I want you to describe what you think is going on in this country. You know, the short answer is that Hungary is the premier international model for democratic backsliding in a consolidated democracy. That sounds like a little bit political science jargony broken down. What it means is Hungary is a truly striking case of a democracy sliding backwards into some kind of authoritarian system. It's that some kind of actually that I've been really struggling with because I hear authoritarianism and I think secret police. I think there are certain things I can't say in public. And every Hungarian I talked to, whether they were critical

of Prime Minister Viktor Orban or not, kind of made it a point to say, incidentally, I can say whatever I want. But is that authoritarianism or is that something different? I had the same experience you did in Hungary when I'm there, right, is that people will just talk very freely. But it does not mean that there's actual freedom of speech in the country. If you are a media magnate who wants to run a media outlet that is critical of the government, either you're going to be marginal or you're going to be destroyed. The government will audit you repeatedly. They will hound you by making sure you don't get ad revenue.

They will ensure that your competitors get certain advantages, your government-friendly competitors. And this pattern has repeated over and over again to the point where, depending on whose estimate you buy, between 80 and maybe even upwards of 90% of all media in the country is owned by the government and its cutouts. So it is an authoritarian system that is designed to mimic certain freedoms that democratic countries have and to make people think that they actually have them. It's a whole part of the legitimation strategy that Orban has employed. For some time, you've been making the argument that Orbanism, Viktor Orban's style, is creeping into the United States,

creeping Orbanism, if I may. And I want to talk about one figure in particular whom you've written about, Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis. What has Ron DeSantis done that reminds you of Victor Orban? What's the American analog here? The best way to think about this is the whole saga involving Florida's don't-say-gay law and the subsequent fight with the Disney Corporation. Now, this law is very similar to a Hungarian law passed about a year prior to the American law. The European Commission has urged Hungary to repeal the law, but Budapest says EU efforts to overturn it will be in vain, insisting the measure is there to protect children. Some things that I've seen suggest the American law was literally inspired by Orban's law, which is an attempt to curtail the speech rights of LGBT individuals. There's

this element of the use of social policy and socially conservative ideas as a means of cracking down on individual liberties and making it difficult for your cultural opponents and your political opponents to express themselves in public spaces. But then afterwards, what's potentially even more striking is that when Disney, which is obviously a very big company in Florida, protested, DeSantis decided to retaliate by attempting to strip their special tax privileges in a place called the Reedy Creek Improvement District, where Disney basically functions as a mini government. Florida revoked that, basically in direct retaliation. This state is governed by the interests of the people of the state of Florida. It is not

based on the demands of California corporate executives. That is classic Orbanism. The idea that what you do is you take a regulatory policy that was designed for other reasons, namely encouraging economic development and boosting the sort of welfare of people in a particular part of Florida, and using it to punish a corporation that speaks out. That is, I think, the essence of Orban's style of rule, is twisting government powers. Obviously, there is a certain type of Republican

that is looking at Hungary and is very interested in what Viktor Orban is doing, how he's done it. Viktor Orban very famously sort of consolidated power in all of these different areas, the judiciary, the media. He rewrote the Constitution. These are things that you can't do in the United States. Nobody's going to come along, throw out the Constitution, rip it up, write a new one and say these are the new laws. And so some of this concern that maybe America is drifting toward a Hungary-like model seems really overwrought to me.

Where do you come down on this? The concern to me is not that Donald Trump comes in in a second term and all of a sudden he is doing everything that Orban has done on the federal level. I really worry about people like DeSantis employing these kinds of powers because states have incredible amounts of powerism, but a more subtle Hungarian version cropping up in certain states. And you've already seen warning signs of that, not just in Florida, but also I think most notably Wisconsin and North Carolina, who are two of the real Republican innovators on figuring out how to undermine a democratic system from within. What do you say to someone who makes this argument? Zach, this is just Americans looking abroad the way they always do. You're mad.

You're upset because it's Republicans doing it. But if liberals do this with Sweden, you don't go and write a piece for Vox saying we should be worried about this. To which I say, are elections competitive in Sweden? Are elections competitive in Norway? Yes, they are. Are elections competitive in Sweden? Are elections competitive in Norway? Yes, they are. Are elections competitive in Hungary? No, they're not.

The opposition, as we just saw in the election of April this year, was not competing on a fair playing ground. They had no real chance to win. And when you look to a country like that, it's just categorically different than it is looking to a country like Sweden, because you're talking about a country that's pioneering a model for democratic destruction. And the means by which it accomplishes these things are inextricably intertwined with its social conservatism. The conservatism is used as a pretext for power grabs. And so when you're looking to model that,

what you are modeling is a playbook for authoritarianism. It's not just social conservative policies, right? And there are certain policies that if you want to take from Hungary, like subsidies for families, right? I have no problem with that, but lots of countries subsidize families and provide superior childcare options to what we have in the United States. Why do you pick that country? Why the one that also happens to be pretty much the European Union's only authoritarian government? In 25 years, with the way the United States is going, with its democracy feeling a little shaky in our lifetimes, does the United States look more like Hungary? Or does the United States stay the United States we know?

Something kind of like Hungary is not implausible. You couldn't imagine any kind of top-down electoral rigging in the way that you get in Hungary. But what you could imagine is a basically successful attempt to change enough states into Hungary-like statelets or fiefdoms where national elections are no longer meaningfully competitive, or at least Democrats are playing on such an unlevel playing field that they almost never get to wield power effectively, especially given Republican control over the

courts. That's not inconceivable. It's also not inevitable, right? It depends on what Democrats choose to do. It depends on if Republicans continue down the path that they are on. And what I do think we should be is alarmed, alarmed at the similarities between the situation and alarmed that in a at the similarities between the situation. And alarmed that in a country that has a much longer and much more robust tradition of democratic governance than Hungary does, that you're starting to see enough similarities that we could maybe think about ourselves at being in the same situation as Hungary right before Orban took over and authoritarianized the system. Zach Beecham, senior correspondent at Vox.

Kasanam? Kasanam. Today's show was produced by Miles Bryan and Talima Shah. It was edited by Jolie Myers and Matthew Collette. It was fact-checked by Tori Dominguez and Laura Bullard. And it was engineered by Paul Mounsey and Afim Shapiro. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. Thank you.