{"id":3280,"date":"2020-08-20T11:47:03","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T11:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3280"},"modified":"2020-08-20T11:47:03","modified_gmt":"2020-08-20T11:47:03","slug":"the-american-rights-favorite-strongman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3280","title":{"rendered":"The American right\u2019s favorite strongman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“After winning Hungary\u2019s 2010 election, the prime minister systematically dismantled the country\u2019s democracy<\/a> \u2014 undermining the basic fairness of elections, packing the courts with cronies, and taking control of more than 90 percent of the country\u2019s media outlets. He has openly described his form of government as \u201cilliberal democracy,\u201d half of which is accurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the coronavirus, Orb\u00e1n\u2019s authoritarian tendencies have only grown more pronounced<\/a>. His allies in parliament passed a new law giving him the power to rule by decree and creating a new crime, \u201cspreading a falsehood,\u201d punishable by up to five years in prison. The Hungarian government recently seized public funding that opposing political parties depend on; through an ally, they took financial control of one of the few remaining anti-Orb\u00e1n media outlets. In May, the pro-democracy group Freedom House officially announced that it no longer considered Hungary a democracy<\/a>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Religious conservatives find Orb\u00e1n\u2019s social policies to be a breath of fresh air. Orb\u00e1n has given significant state support to Hungary\u2019s churches<\/a>, officially labeling his government a \u201cChristian democracy.\u201d He provided generous subsidies to families in an effort to get Hungarian women to stay at home and have more babies<\/a>. He launched a legal assault on progressive social ideals, prohibiting the teaching of gender studies in Hungarian universities<\/a> and banning transgender people from legally identifying as anything other than their biological sex at birth<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conservative nationalists focus on the Hungarian approach to immigration and the European Union. During the 2015 migrant crisis, Orb\u00e1n was the most prominent opponent of German Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s open borders approach; he built a wall on Hungary\u2019s southern border<\/a> with Serbia to keep refugees from entering. He has repeatedly denounced the influence the EU has on its member states, describing one of his governing aims as preserving Hungary\u2019s national character in the face of a globalist onslaught led by Brussels and philanthropist George Soros<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Western conservatives of a religious and\/or nationalist bent, Orb\u00e1n is the leader they wish Donald Trump could be \u2014 smart, politically savvy, and genuinely devoted to their ideals. Hungary is, for them, the equivalent of what Nordic countries are for the American left: proof of concept that their ideas could make the United States a better place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet while the Nordic countries are among the world\u2019s freest democracies, Hungary has fallen into a form of autocracy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Orb\u00e1n and much of his inner circle are lawyers by training; they have used this expertise to set up a political system that looks very much like a democracy, with elections and a theoretically free press, but isn\u2019t one. This gives intellectually sympathetic Westerners some room for self-delusion. They can examine Hungary, a country whose cultural politics they admire, and see a place that looks on the surface like a functioning democracy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If these thinkers continue to insist that Hungary is just another democracy \u2014 despite copious evidence to the contrary \u2014 how can we expect them to call out the same, more embryonic process of authoritarianism happening at home? If American conservatives won\u2019t turn on a foreign country\u2019s leadership after it crosses the line, what reason would we have to believe that they\u2019d be capable of doing the same thing when the stakes for them are higher and the enemies more deeply hated?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2020\/5\/21\/21256324\/viktor-orban-hungary-american-conservatives<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“After winning Hungary\u2019s 2010 election, the prime minister systematically dismantled the country\u2019s democracy \u2014 undermining the basic fairness of elections, packing the courts with cronies, and taking control of more than 90 percent of the country\u2019s media outlets. He has openly described his form of government as \u201cilliberal democracy,\u201d half of which is accurate.<\/p>\n

Since the coronavirus, Orb\u00e1n\u2019s authoritarian tendencies have only grown more pronounced. His allies in parliament passed a new law giving him the power to rule by decree and creating a new crime, \u201cspreading a falsehood,\u201d punishable by up to five years in prison. The Hungarian government recently seized public funding that opposing political parties depend on; through an ally, they took financial control of one of the few remaining anti-Orb\u00e1n media outlets. In May, the pro-democracy group Freedom House officially announced that it no longer considered Hungary a democracy.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Religious conservatives find Orb\u00e1n\u2019s social policies to be a breath of fresh air. Orb\u00e1n has given significant state support to Hungary\u2019s churches, officially labeling his government a \u201cChristian democracy.\u201d He provided generous subsidies to families in an effort to get Hungarian women to stay at home and have more babies. He launched a legal assault on progressive social ideals, prohibiting the teaching of gender studies in Hungarian universities and banning transgender people from legally identifying as anything other than their biological sex at birth.<\/p>\n

Conservative nationalists focus on the Hungarian approach to immigration and the European Union. During the 2015 migrant crisis, Orb\u00e1n was the most prominent opponent of German Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s open borders approach; he built a wall on Hungary\u2019s southern border with Serbia to keep refugees from entering. He has repeatedly denounced the influence the EU has on its member states, describing one of his governing aims as preserving Hungary\u2019s national character in the face of a globalist onslaught led by Brussels and philanthropist George Soros.<\/p>\n

For Western conservatives of a religious and\/or nationalist bent, Orb\u00e1n is the leader they wish Donald Trump could be \u2014 smart, politically savvy, and genuinely devoted to their ideals. Hungary is, for them, the equivalent of what Nordic countries are for the American left: proof of concept that their ideas could make the United States a better place.<\/p>\n

Yet while the Nordic countries are among the world\u2019s freest democracies, Hungary has fallen into a form of autocracy.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Orb\u00e1n and much of his inner circle are lawyers by training; they have used this expertise to set up a political system that looks very much like a democracy, with elections and a theoretically free press, but isn\u2019t one. This gives intellectually sympathetic Westerners some room for self-delusion. They can examine Hungary, a country whose cultural politics they admire, and see a place that looks on the surface like a functioning democracy.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“If these thinkers continue to insist that Hungary is just another democracy \u2014 despite copious evidence to the contrary \u2014 how can we expect them to call out the same, more embryonic process of authoritarianism happening at home? If American conservatives won\u2019t turn on a foreign country\u2019s leadership after it crosses the line, what reason would we have to believe that they\u2019d be capable of doing the same thing when the stakes for them are higher and the enemies more deeply hated?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[864,431,660,971,969,970,661],"class_list":["post-3280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-autocracy","tag-democracy","tag-dictatorship","tag-free-press","tag-hungary","tag-illiberal-democracy","tag-tyranny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3281,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3280\/revisions\/3281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}