A “hub” of conservative thought in Budapest
Hungarian national conservatives have indeed invested heavily in recent years to attract the attention of “Trumpism” strategists. Several tens of millions of euros, according to independent Hungarian media, were swallowed up in conferences and the recruitment of journalists and intellectuals. Like the academic Gladden Pappin, placed at the head of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, or Rod Dreher, a leading figure in the “Alt-Right”. The latter was recruited by the Danube Institute to carry out the Hungarian project of making Budapest a hub international conservative thought and to supply the US press with articles favorable to the master of Budapest.
The American election shows a fragmented European Union: “If Donald Trump returns, we will be relieved”
Immigration, gender theory, wokism… The obsessions are the same among those who call themselves “conservatives” on both sides of the Atlantic. In this most asymmetrical relationship, the Republicans see above all in Hungary the laboratory of a “conservatism” tinged with authoritarianism which imposes itself at the polls. “In 2002, Orban was defeated by the deep state at the hands of ex-communists, and he learned his lessons“, perceives Jeremy Carl, formerly of the Trump administration now an analyst at the Claremont Institute. “He maneuvered admirably and managed to change the rules. The American right has a lot to learn from him, including how to use his power.“
Bringing the federal administration into line
The Danube Institute alone has spent 1.3 million euros of public money over the past three years, supporting foreign collaborators and hosting conferences, the media reports Transparent. He worked closely with the Heritage Foundation, the main conservative lobby, very influential during the first Trump presidency, to develop its “Project 2025”. This is a road map to disarm the counter-powers and bring the federal administration into line, once Trump returns to the White House. Does this mean that a new Trump presidency would destroy the rule of law as in Hungary? “We are not going to make a constitutional revolutiontries to reassure Jeremy Carl, but there are things to do with the administration…“.
New affront from Viktor Orban: after Putin, he visited Donald Trump, whose shadow hangs over NATO and Ukraine
“We are heavily involved in President Donald Trump’s team’s agenda-writing system“, publicly congratulated Viktor Orban last summer. The Magyar leader is almost the only foreign reference summoned by Donald Trump, who showered him with praise during several meetings: “A strong, intelligent man, the best!“. The two men appeared together on several occasions at the Florida estate of Mar-a-Lago, where Trump played presidents in exile throughout Joe Biden’s term. His return to the White House would forcefully relegitimize the regime of Viktor Orban, increasingly contested in his country.
“Play by your own rules“, the Hungarian professed during a pro-Trump conference in Texas in the summer of 2022, where he was invited to reveal his winning recipe. “We must not fight with the tools of liberals, because our adversaries use liberal institutions, concepts and language to hide their Marxist and hegemonist plans. Politics, my friends, is not enough, this war is a cultural war“. This did not fall on deaf ears.
