PM Viktor Orban, Trump Style, Putting Hungarians First

A few years ago, I took a trip to Hungary and was supposed to meet the country’s popular Prime Minister, Viktor Orban. The meeting was unfortunately canceled due to a scheduling conflict, but I was able to get a feel for Hungary, and its people.

At National Review, Jay Nordlinger examines the phenomenon of Viktor Orban. Orban, unlike Western European leaders, has no interest in turning his country into a multi-cultural cesspool or allowing identity politics to divide his people.

Nordlinger doesn’t give Orban much credit, but when you read through his summation of Orban’s supporters, you begin to understand why the people of Hungary appreciate their prime minister so much. You may also see the similarities between Orban and President Trump. Nordlinger writes (abridged):

Viktor Orbán is a hero and darling of nationalists and populists in America and elsewhere.

Relations between him and President Trump are very warm.

“It’s like we’re twins,” Trump remarked to his counterpart. The U.S. ambassador to Hungary is David Cornstein, a New York businessman and a longtime acquaintance of Trump. Pressed by Franklin Foer of The Atlantic on what Orbán calls “illiberal democracy,” Cornstein said, “I can tell you, knowing the president for a good 25 or 30 years, that he would love to have the situation that Viktor Orbán has, but he doesn’t.”

The Orbán question is one of the great dividing lines on the American right today. Some see Orbán as a great defender of the West, of Christian civilization itself.

In 2017, Congressman Steve King (R., Iowa) tweeted, “History will record PM Orban the Winston Churchill of Western Civilization.” (Some of us might accord that honor to Churchill himself.) In 2018, Patrick J. Buchanan was characteristically blunt:

“The democracy worshippers of the West cannot compete with the authoritarians in meeting the crisis of our time because they do not see what is happening to the West as a crisis.” Hungarians, he said, “have used democratic means to elect autocratic men who will put the Hungarian nation first.”

Read more here.