MANY THINGS CONSIDERED: One Congressman’s Viktor Orbán Mind Meld

By Marc C. Johnson

Elements of the American far right felt a shudder down their weak spines recently.

The Hungarian authoritarian, Viktor Orbán, got dumped by angry voters tired of his corruption and their country’s sputtering economy.

It has been and remains a mystery to me why any American political leader would embrace this guy. That many have is a testament to how far out in deep right field large portions of the modern Republican Party has gone.

Case in point.

Back when he was still a Fox News talking head, Tucker Carlson embraced Orbán, even producing a documentary about him 2021.

This was before Trump 2.0, of course, but here is what The Guardian wrote at the time:

Robert P Jones, founder and chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute and author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, said: “It’s right on brand in many ways for the kind of things that we saw in the Trump administration. This week Tucker Carlson explicitly referred to ‘the danger of Christian culture being blotted out’ both in Europe and the US.

“It really is an ethnic religious nationalism that we’re seeing here. The enemies are people who have darker skin and are not Christian. You see a lot of anti-Islamic sentiment there and a lot of closing of borders. Tucker Carlson picked up talking points right out of the KKK [Ku Klux Klan] handbook talking about white replacement.”

Orbán’s style of leadership also echoes Trump’s “I alone can fix it” demagoguery. His government and its allies have taken control of roughly 90% of media outlets, he has undermined the independence of the judiciary and he is tightening his influence over the electoral system. Last month Hungary’s parliament passed a law banning gay people from featuring in school educational materials or TV shows for under-18s.

This is what American conservatism has become, or hopes to become.

Here’s Italian historian Steven Forti, a student of the strong men of the European far right, in an interview with Le Monde:

The main tenets of Orban’s doctrine – rejection of immigration and minority rights, sovereignism – are well known and not particularly original in the history of the far right. What stands out more is Orban’s practice of “mimicking democracy”: formally respecting democracy and the rule of law (including the principle of elections, from which he has now emerged defeated), while simultaneously undermining institutions from within – undermining parliament, controlling the press, changing the constitution. After Vladimir Putin, Orban was the first leader within the European Union to break out of the classic dichotomy between democracy and authoritarianism.

Some break out. And so very familiar.

Now comes an out of touch, intellectually challenged congressional back bencher from Idaho who, despite the repudiation of Orbán at the polls, was praising him in the days after his recent defeat.

I mean, come on, when you’re in a hole …

Not the sharpest pencil in the box

On April 22, just ten days after Viktor Orbán, the corrupt, authoritarian leader of Hungary, was ushered out of office in a historic landslide – Orbán ruled the country for 16 years and systematically disbanded its democracy – Idaho’s First District Congressman Russ Fulcher said something that was truly vile and wildly, stunningly inaccurate.

While the entire sane world, and the vast majority of Hungarians, were celebrating Orbán’s smashing defeat at the polls, Fulcher was offering lavish praise.

The historian Anne Applebaum who has frequently written about Hungary and Orbán told National Public Radio that Orbán’s ouster was a product of a grassroots uprising against his corruption and his thuggish dismantling of a once thriving democracy.

“I think it was accumulated experience. I mean, look, this is a very corrupt system. The corruption was beginning to affect people’s lives – a deterioration of health care, of education, very high inflation. And I think that was coupled also with the revelations that happened at the end of the campaign, of Orbán talking to Vladimir Putin, of his foreign minister talking to the Russian foreign minister and appearing to collude with them against the European Union.

“You know, Hungarians still have a fresh memory of being occupied by the Soviet Union, and for a lot of people, even younger people, this was too much and people started chanting at his – both at Orbán’s rallies and at opposition rallies, Russians go home. And I think that was really the nail in the coffin.”

Kenneth Ross, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote:

“One consequence of Orbán’s stifling of dissent was that he lived in a classic autocratic echo chamber. He heard what he allowed to be said. But leaders who trust their gut as a source of brilliance make big mistakes. Among Orbán’s was his corruption – the lavish estates of his family members while ordinary Hungarians scraped by, his use of government funds to pay off cronies rather than provide services that Hungarians need. Despite his promotion of family values, his associates pardoned the deputy director of a children’s home who had been convicted of covering up child sexual abuse. His close cooperation with the Russian government backfired.”

Orban’s opponent, now the Hungarian prime minister, Péter Magyar, highlighted all these abuses and won a super majority in the parliament.

Yet, somewhere in the muddled, blinkered mind of the Idaho back bencher, Russ Fulcher, Hungary under Orbán was some kind of bulwark against, what, fair elections, free speech, anti-corruption?

“Hungary became the tip of the spear in the fight against globalism under Viktor Orbán, and an invaluable ally to the United States,” Fulcher wrote on his Facebook page.

A valuable ally? Orban personally blocked European Union support for Ukraine’s existential fight against Russian aggression and broadly alienated staunch American allies. If Orban were any friend of any American it would have been Putin’s pal Donald Trump.

But Fulcher had more to say:

“Recently, I had the honor to meet with Hungary’s leadership and discuss Orbán’s successful pillars of Peace, Sovereignty, Freedom, and Security. It’s my hope that their new leadership will see the value in maintaining these principles.”

Semi-loyal American politicos

In their book Tyranny of the Minority, political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt portray Viktor Orbán as the modern world’s most successful autocrat who used the trappings of constitutional government to undermine democracy.

Orbán, they write, changed how judges were appointed in Hungary in order to pack the judiciary with his supporters, effectively dismantling an independent judicial system. Under Orbán, Hungary’s public media was “restructured” to eliminate coverage of the ruling party’s opponents in favor of “nakedly partisan” disinformation. Thousands of journalists lost jobs, while private media outlets were harassed and fined. Institutions of higher education were punished for any program that failed to toe the party line and Orban used his power to pervert the electoral process, ensuring that his party would stay in office until Hungarian voters recently said they had enough.

Here’s Fulcher’s take on the near unanimous verdict of America’s allies that Hungary under Viktor Orbán was an illiberal, autocratic, near dictatorship:

“In Congress, I will continue to support a strong, enduring U.S.-Hungary relationship that perpetuates freedom of speech and sovereignty of nations. This partnership is more pertinent now than ever given unfolding events around the world and America’s relationship with its traditional allies.”

Well, Fulcher did get something right.

America’s traditional allies were appalled by Viktor Orbán and said so loudly and clearly. France, the UK, Germany, Canada and the sane western world rejoiced in his defeat. The United States under Donald Trump is the outlier.

Where did Fulcher, never having impressed his constituents or his colleagues with a grasp of much of anything beyond ultra rightwing talking points, get these insane ideas? Why would an American congressman behave so bizarrely, embracing, days after he was overwhelmingly ushered out by his own voters, a man widely reviled as a friend of Putin and an enemy of democracy?

Fulcher is clearly taking cues from the fringes of MAGA world (and Tucker Carlson) and the American vice president.

The White House patron saint of lost causes, JD Vance, flew to Hungary to campaign for Orbán even as many observers were predicting Orbán’s ouster. That act, in and of itself hugely inappropriate interference in another nation’s election, is evidence of how anti-democratic Fulcher and the movement he embraces have become.

In this context it must be remembered that Fulcher, displaying historic rejection of democracy’s fundamentals, refused to certify the 2020 election of Joe Biden, on the same day an armed mob attacked the U.S. Capital.

Levitsky and Ziblatt, among others, term such behavior as being “semi-loyal” to democracy. Fulcher and others in this clan claim to support democracy while “turning a blind eye to violence or antidemocratic extremism.”

“Indeed, throughout history, cooperation between authoritarians and seemingly respectable semi-loyal democrats has been a recipe for democratic breakdown.” And here we are.

Idaho’s First District has often been represented by ultra radical rightwing provocateurs. Helen Chenoweth, who served incoherently in the late 1990’s, was MAGA before it existed. While Bill Sali, who occupied the seat (for a single term from 2007 to 2009), was described by the late Idaho political scientist Jim Weatherby as an inept “right wing wacko.” Jim was being kind.

Fulcher’s in the same class, but arguably worse. At a time when American democracy is facing huge assault from authoritarian forces around the world, and from the White House, Idaho has sent a dangerous “semi-loyal” fraud in Congress.

Fulcher’s praise for Viktor Orbán should be his final straw.

If Facebook had existed in 1934 would these jokers have been posting praise of Benito Mussolini? Leave your answer in the comments.

Still at some point in the not too distant future you hope these authoritarian adjacent Republicans – the Mike Lee’s, the Russ Fulcher’s, the Tucker Carlson’s – finally get their comeuppance, just like Viktor Orbán got his.

The world will be better for it.

It’s difficult to be an optimist in today’s world and I’m not all that optimistic, but I do focus on realism and try to populate my writing with solid sourcing and not merely opinion. I write these pieces to offer a perspective based on history and particularly American political history since 1900.

These essays are free, but a financial contribution helps support my writing and research, including a new book in progress.

Subscribe to Marc’s Substack for $8 a month or make a pledge.

Many thanks.