Tag: Viktor Orban

The American Right’s Dictator Fan Club

In some cases the fans were intellectuals or writers. Buckley excitedly led the charge to defend Francoist Spain and apartheid South Africa (his 1957 pro-Franco missive, “Letter From Spain,” remains nauseating reading 75 years on). In other cases, the dictators’ cheerleaders were people in positions of real power. Reagan-era fixture Jeane Kirkpatrick worked behind the […]

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If Trump and His Heroes Ruled the World

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt In 2019, President Trump was waiting for a meeting with Egypt’s president. “Where’s my favorite dictator?” he asked aloud. The Wall Street Journal suggested that, “even if lighthearted, Mr. Trump’s quip drew attention to an uncomfortable facet of the U.S.-Egypt relationship.” But in fact, Trump was conveying admiration, not discomfort, for […]

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How Viktor Orbán Conquered the Heritage Foundation

During the Trump era, Orbán’s government ran one of the most prominent lobbying campaigns in the U.S., almost all of which focused on forging stronger links between Washington and Budapest. This was to some degree understandable: With Trump ensconced in the White House, Hungary became America’s preferred partner in Europe—not least for the authoritarian model […]

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Why Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Meeting with Viktor Orbán Should Terrify Us All

This week, Donald Trump will host Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Meanwhile, Congress is on the verge of abandoning Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. Trump’s romance with Orbán—and the opposition of MAGA Republicans to helping Ukraine—are part of the same story, in which the American right has grown increasingly besotted with international strongmen. […]

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Democracy Is in Peril, Just Not the Way We Thought

Levitsky and Ziblatt still make comparisons with other countries to marvelous effect, thickening their arguments in a gumbo of historical and contemporary examples from Brazil, Hungary, Argentina, Thailand, Italy, Chile, Germany, South Korea, and countless other states. But they also dig far deeper than before into America’s own violently authoritarian past, and the way that […]

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Cognitive Decline? Trump Mixes Up Autocrats Who Love Him

Ogg has also used her position to attack political opponents with onerous court cases, effectively punishing them for challenging her. In mid-September, a county court-at-law judge told the Houston Chronicle that he warned colleagues not to cross her: “If you piss her off, you’re going to a grand jury and you may or may not […]

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Samuel Huntington’s Great Idea Was Totally Wrong

And then there is the Russo-Ukrainian War, the conflict with the most potential to escalate into a nuclear exchange. In The Clash, Huntington argued specifically that the future relationship between Russia and Ukraine would serve as a test of his theory. He rebutted John Mearsheimer’s claim that the two countries were headed for conflict because […]

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Why the GOP Fell in Love with Hungary

While it is true that Fidesz speaks often of the importance of the Christian family, the Hungarian government encourages reproduction by effectively boosting welfare. In April, the government insisted that supermarkets should put promotions in place, offering sales on a different kind of product each week. In 2019, Orbán promised that women with more than […]

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