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Hungary and The Dangerous Polarization of Foreign Policy
Not everything should be part of the culture war.
Last week brought the politics of Hungary into American political discourse for the first time in years. Fox News host Tucker Carlson brought his highly rated show to the Eastern European nation for the week. He effusively praised the Hungarian state and its autocratic leader, Viktor Orbán. This decision set off the American liberal punditry. Many argued that Tucker’s visit was to showcase the eventual end goal of the Republican Party over Trumpism. In Hungary, dissent is limited and elections only appear free, while Orbán’s position is always secure. The nation rejects immigrants and is practically run by an ideology of anti-Semitism. Liberals see a number of parallels with Republican chicanery on voting rights and their attempts to undermine the legitimate election of Democrats. Jonathan Chait at New York made this point last week when he wrote:
The broad lesson of Trump’s presidency is that clumsy, violent efforts to seize power — such as the January 6 insurrection — will meet with intra-party resistance, but subtler power grabs will not. Republicans decided to shrug at abuses like Trump using American diplomacy as a lever to coerce Ukraine to smear his opponent, refusing to accept the election outcome, or using the presidency to line his own pockets… What they seem to want is a leader who shares Trump’s contempt for democracy, but possesses a subtler touch. That is the vision Orbán offers.
The politicization of American views of other countries is worrying. Hungary should be denounced as an autocracy that imprisons its enemies and quashes basic human rights. But the American Right’s support for Hungary needs to be understood in context if we have any hope of separating discussions of foreign countries from our endless culture war.
There are no data to suggest that most Republicans truly want an imposition of an Orbán-like state. Too many of them supported Barack Obama back in 2009 to want to outlaw the Democratic Party. The values of democracy often poll well. Orbán’s actions would be rejected by a large majority of Americans if they were attempted in this country. Republicans groveled and complained when their president lost in November, but most of them went on to criticize and complain about the…
