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Tucker Carlson is only the latest — and most famous — American conservative to find inspiration in the autocratic government of Hungary under Viktor Orban. The Fox News personality is hosting his show, one of the most popular on cable news, from the capital city of Budapest and on Saturday will deliver a speech, advertised as “The World According to Tucker Carlson,” to a conference of far-right activists.
To critics, Orban’s Hungary is corrupt, repressive and authoritarian, a place where democracy is little more than window-dressing and the state exists to plunder the public on behalf of a tiny ruling elite. To Carlson, it’s a model for the United States, a showcase for anti-immigrant policies and reactionary cultural politics.
“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,” he told his audience on Monday, “you should know what is happening here right now.”
Carlson is not alone. “Orban’s fans in the West include notable writers at major conservative and right-leaning publications like National Review, the American Conservative and the New York Post,” Zack Beauchamp wrote in a piece for Vox last year.
Orban’s American admirers include political philosopher Patrick Deneen; J.D. Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy” who is now running for the Republican Senate nomination in Ohio; and Rod Dreher, a popular conservative blogger and author.
“Which is the only power capable of standing up to Woke Capitalists, as well as these illiberal leftists in academia,...