Viktor Orbán is taking his blueprint on dismantling democracy to Mar-a-Lago.
The Hungarian prime minister first won power through a
democratic election, then proceeded to weaken the institutions of that
democracy by eroding the legal system, firing civil servants, politicizing
business, attacking the press and intimidating opposition parties and
demagoguing migration.
Former President Donald Trump has left no doubt that he’d
try something similar in the United States if he wins a second term – so the
presumptive GOP nominee will presumably be eager to compare notes when he hosts
Orbán in Florida on Friday.
The prime minister isn’t meeting Biden administration
officials. (A Biden administration official told CNN’s Betsy Klein that no
invitation for a meeting between the current US president and Hungarian leader
was extended.) Instead, he’s choosing to meet the man he hopes will again be US
president next year. The two men have a long history of mutual admiration. The
fact that one of Trump’s first moves since becoming presumptive GOP nominee
this week is to meet a European autocrat speaks volumes.
Trump sees Orbán as the kind of strongman – unencumbered by
legal and political restraints – that he’d like to be. Orbán also frequently
genuflects to Russian President Vladimir Putin – just like the former US
president. Orbán supports Trump’s vow to end the war in Ukraine if he’s elected
within 24 hours – a process that could happen only on Putin’s terms and reward
his illegal invasion. Their relationship is also helped by the Hungarian
leader’s frequent praise for Trump. He knows the way to the ex-president’s
heart. At a rally in New Hampshire in January, Trump diverted from his regular
stump speech to laud Orbán in a way that offered a chilling glimpse into his
own intentions. “Some people don’t like him because he’s too strong. It’s good to
have a strong man at the head of a country,” Trump reflected.
Orbán’s far-right populism, fierce anti-immigration
rhetoric, Christian nationalism and hostility to LGBTQ rights has made him a
popular ideological model for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” followers. He
has spoken in the past at the Conservative Political Action Conference – an
annual gathering of pro-Trump forces – and Hungary will host another edition of
CPAC’s overseas conferences next month.
In many ways, Orbán pioneered a demagogic style of
leadership that is identical to that of Trump long before the ex-reality star
and property mogul went into politics. His country is a member of NATO and the
European Union but, like Trump, he has often taken steps that cut against the
interests of the western democracies. He has, for instance, long feuded with
the EU over his anti-immigration policies and slowed the entry of Sweden into
NATO, which finally took place this week.
Ahead of his meeting with the former president, Orbán
endorsed Trump’s views on Ukraine, in what will have been music to Putin’s ears
and will have added to alarm in Kyiv about what a second Trump term would mean.
“It is not gambling but actually betting on the only sensible chance, that we
in Hungary bet on the return of President Trump,” Orbán told an economic forum
on Monday, Reuters reported. “The only chance of the world for a relatively
fast peace deal is political change in the United States and this is linked to
who is the president.”
Trump’s antipathy to sending more US aid to Ukraine had
prompted House Republicans to block President Joe Biden’s latest $60 billion
package and has led frontline soldiers fighting Russia to ration bullets. Trump
is not even president, but he’s already influencing US policy in ways that help
Putin.
Biden used the early portion of his State of the Union
address on Thursday night to castigate Trump over his hostility to NATO allies
and affinity with the Russian leader. “My predecessor, a former Republican
president, tells Putin, ‘Do whatever the hell you want,’” Biden said, referring
to a comment by Trump to the effect that if NATO states didn’t make militaryspending targets he wouldn’t defend them. “A former American president actually
said that, bowing down to a Russian leader. It’s outrageous. It’s dangerous.
It’s unacceptable.”
Biden, who is anchoring his reelection bid on a warning that
Trump would destroy US democracy in a second term, was quick to seize on
Orbán’s visit to Florida. In a statement, Biden’s campaign rebuked Trump for
meeting “Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán, notorious for eroding his own
country’s democracy and cozying up to Vladimir Putin (sound familiar?)”
The juxtaposition of Biden using his State of the Union
address on Thursday to vow to fight to preserve American and global democracy
and Trump’s red carpet welcome for Orbán eloquently encapsulates the political
and geopolitical crossroads that America’s presidential election represents.
