Trump or his minions have studied Orban's techniques for dismantling Hungary's democracy very carefully. Orban has been more subtle than Putin--no killing--but his goal was the same: one-man rule. Orban destroyed the free press by putting financial pressure on independent newspapers and TV stations and forcing them to sell out to his cro…
Trump or his minions have studied Orban's techniques for dismantling Hungary's democracy very carefully. Orban has been more subtle than Putin--no killing--but his goal was the same: one-man rule. Orban destroyed the free press by putting financial pressure on independent newspapers and TV stations and forcing them to sell out to his cronies. He has cultivated a group of oligarchs by handing out properties and EC subsidies to them. Orban politicized the bureaucracy, the army and the judiciary, through intimidation rather than jailing people. Sound familiar?
It's worse than that. It's Putin's ideologue Alexander Dugin who came up with the "illiberal ideology" idea, and Steve Bannon and part of America's neofascists studied him, MET him in person and AGREED with him. Bannon and Trump advisor Sebastian Gorka then became Orban's advisors and helped him do what Trump had already managed to achieve during his first term in the US. Then, together, they mapped out a plan to try to install Putin's autocratic oligarchy inside Hungary. Next step: Orban created the Danube Institute, an English-speaking think tank that transferred what it learned to... the Heritage Foundation, and worked directly with it to write Project 2025, designed to do what Bannon, Gorda and Orban did in Hungary, only faster and better.
And as you know, no doubt, CPAC held one of its annual conferences in Budapest and showcased as their keynote speaker….Orban. The CPAC liked what they heard so much that they invited Orban to be the keynote speaker at another conference in the US. That fell through because of scheduling issues, but their admiration of his “illiberal democracy” shows their true values…profoundly anti-democratic.
In MAGA-thought, the "administrative state" is antidemocratic - whereas an elected monarch who bulldozes all restraints on his power and then rigs the electoral system in his favor is the Voice of the People.
Trump or his minions have studied Orban's techniques for dismantling Hungary's democracy very carefully. Orban has been more subtle than Putin--no killing--but his goal was the same: one-man rule. Orban destroyed the free press by putting financial pressure on independent newspapers and TV stations and forcing them to sell out to his cronies. He has cultivated a group of oligarchs by handing out properties and EC subsidies to them. Orban politicized the bureaucracy, the army and the judiciary, through intimidation rather than jailing people. Sound familiar?
It's worse than that. It's Putin's ideologue Alexander Dugin who came up with the "illiberal ideology" idea, and Steve Bannon and part of America's neofascists studied him, MET him in person and AGREED with him. Bannon and Trump advisor Sebastian Gorka then became Orban's advisors and helped him do what Trump had already managed to achieve during his first term in the US. Then, together, they mapped out a plan to try to install Putin's autocratic oligarchy inside Hungary. Next step: Orban created the Danube Institute, an English-speaking think tank that transferred what it learned to... the Heritage Foundation, and worked directly with it to write Project 2025, designed to do what Bannon, Gorda and Orban did in Hungary, only faster and better.
And as you know, no doubt, CPAC held one of its annual conferences in Budapest and showcased as their keynote speaker….Orban. The CPAC liked what they heard so much that they invited Orban to be the keynote speaker at another conference in the US. That fell through because of scheduling issues, but their admiration of his “illiberal democracy” shows their true values…profoundly anti-democratic.
In MAGA-thought, the "administrative state" is antidemocratic - whereas an elected monarch who bulldozes all restraints on his power and then rigs the electoral system in his favor is the Voice of the People.