MAGA Is Obsessed with Viktor Orban. Liberals Should Be Too.
Let’s stop talking about liberal or illiberal democracy — it’s just democracy.
MAGA favorite Viktor Orban, Hungary's prime minister.
Photographer: Bloomberg/BloombergWhy are Donald Trump and MAGA America so fascinated by Viktor Orban, the prime minister of a small, landlocked central European nation that many of them likely couldn’t find on a map? Because, as he said in 2022 when he addressed a US Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas, Hungary’s leader just keeps “winning and winning and winning.”
Orban has created a model MAGA country. In a speech to CPAC’s only European franchise in Budapest on Thursday, he offered himself up as living proof that conservatives can survive in an “ocean” of liberal pretense, to “make Europe great again!” Others due to speak included US Republicans such as Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, Congressmen Andy Harris of Maryland and Keith Self of Texas, as well as former presidential hopefuls Vivek Ramaswamy and Rick Santorum.
After a recent visit to Hungary’s capital, still elegant and redolent of the days when it ran a small empire, I think liberals have even more to learn.
Hungary’s leader wants to change the world in his image. That’s not a metaphor or hyperbole. You don’t have to like him or his goals, but don’t discount the 60-year-old’s voracious ambition, political talent and sheer chutzpah. Hungary’s experience under Orban offers at least two takeaways for liberals: First, build a united opposition and don’t wait to fight back. Second, focus that fight tightly around the rule of law and democratic institutions. Mix it up with the culture wars and you will play into populists’ hands.