It’s becoming a bit uncomfortable for Putin fans to express their adoration for their man what with all the atrocities and genocide and all. But never fear, they still have an authoritarian hero to celebrate:
Increasingly, the right has also decided to launder its Putinism though their support for Putin’s leading European ally, Viktor Orban.
Conservative Rod Dreher has long flirted with anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian propaganda:
But this week he tweeted:
The newly re-elected Hungarian strongman has made no secret of his position on the war.
In his victory speech Sunday night, Orban lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had urged Budapest to do more for its neighbors, placing the Ukrainian leader in a constellation of perceived leftist and liberal enemies of his Christian nationalist project. Orban said his triumph came despite the efforts of the “left at home, the international left all around, the Brussels bureaucrats, the [George] Soros empire with all its money, the international mainstream media, and in the end, even the Ukrainian president.”
This is what the folks at CPAC are celebrating
Even as the bodies are still being gathered in the suburbs of Kyiv, as the death toll of children mounts, and Putin continues to target civilians in his campaign of genocide, CPAC has decided to go ahead with its festival of Orbanism.
April 5 (Reuters) – America’s most prominent conservative gathering, founded on ideals of personal liberty and limited government, convenes in Budapest next month to celebrate a European leader accused of undermining democracy and individual rights.
The May meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is seen by some Republicans as a test of how closely American conservatives are willing align themselves with a global movement of far-right, Russia-friendly strongmen embraced by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
As it often does, CPAC is following the lead of the right’s entertainment wing. Tucker Carlson has emerged as Orban’s leading American fluffer, broadcasting from Budapest last year, and airing a fawning interview of the new avatar of illiberalism.
“In the last few nights in Budapest,” mused Tucker Carlson, US rightwing media star, “I’ve run into a number of Americans who have come here because they want to be around people who agree with them, who agree with you. Do you see Budapest as a kind of capital of this kind of thinking?”
While Orban’s appeal may be elusive to those of you who think that liberal democracy defines the West, his attraction for Tucker and other elements of the right is obvious. A substantial faction of the conservative movement now regards his government “which censors LGBT content, demonizes immigrants and ethnic minorities, extols the virtues of the traditional family, and feuds constantly with the supposed globalists of the European Union” as a political model.
In other words, Orban gives them that sweet autocratic dopamine hit they so desperately crave, without the whole rotting corpse, war crime, genocide thing.
This is who they have become.
I hate to say it but it looks increasingly possible that France will vote in Marine LePen, which is crazy. That will probably break up NATO and if that happens, all bets are off.