What Tucker Carlson's Magyar Obsession Really Means
Since the start of the newsletter I’ve relied on our summer researcher, Mac Brower, for fact-checking, ideas, links, and plenty more. Next week he’s leaving for greener pastures as a full-time staff writer for Marc Elias’s Democracy Docket - but before he does (and while I’m still away on vacation) I wanted to run this piece he wrote, our first ever guest post.
There’s a lot going on this week - at first glance it might seem like a weeks-old Tucker Carlson trip to country might be old news. But as Mac makes clear, the conservative movement drawing inspiration from Hungary has everything to do with what we’re living through in real time - and understanding that motivation might help us do something about it before it’s too late.
Hope you all enjoy, and I’ll be back next week.
David
What Tucker Carlson’s Magyar Obsession Really Means
A few weeks ago, Tucker Carlson took a trip. He went to Hungary to lavish praise on the conservative regime of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. During his time in Budapest, Carlson personally met Orbán, spoke at a far-right conference sponsored by the Hungarian government, and told his viewers to pay attention to Hungary “if you care about Western civilization, and democracy, and family.” The implication is clear: Carlson believes Hungary is a model we should be emulating here in the United States.
But a model for what, exactly? Carlson’s invocation of “democracy” and Hungary is interesting, given that Hungary is no longer a liberal democracy in any meaningful sense. After becoming Prime Minister in 2010, Orbán and his allies took steps to tilt the electoral playing field to their advantage, adopting new majoritarian rules, gerrymandering electoral districts, and taking control of election administration. These efforts paid off: Orbán’s party Fidesz won a supermajority in parliament in 2014 with only 44% of the vote.
It’s not just the electoral rules Orbán has manipulated. He’s also packed the courts with friendly judges and taken control of the civil service. Orbán’s allies also now control almost 90% of media outlets, severely curtailing press freedoms. According to Freedom House, Orbán’s government has “dropped any pretense of respecting democratic institutions,” and by 2020 the organization stopped categorizing Hungary as a democracy at all. It is instead now a textbook example of “competitive authoritarianism,” a situation where elections technically still happen, but they’re so heavily stacked in the incumbent’s favor that the people don’t really have any agency over who rules them.
The pandemic only accelerated this democratic backsliding. Orbán’s first instinct was to use it as an excuse to expand his own power; on March 30, 2020, the Hungarian parliament voted to allow him to rule by decree indefinitely. While it rescinded this authority in June 2020, Orbán’s government also made changes to the law regulating emergencies so prior approval from parliament to rule by decree is no longer necessary. In the future, simply declaring an emergency is enough to grant Orbán unchecked power.
All of which begs the question: what do conservatives find so compelling about Orbán’s leadership?
Could it be for economic reasons?
It would be unfair to compare the economy of the United States with that of a landlocked Central European country of only 10 million. But even compared to its neighbors, Hungary’s economy under Orbán’s leadership isn’t particularly impressive. During his current tenure as Prime Minister, Hungary’s economic performance is roughly in line with its peers in the Visegrád Group (Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia) - it hasn’t experienced any kind of economic miracle to suggest it's doing something right that the U.S. is not. There’s also evidence of a significant brain drain – some 600,000 young Hungarians have emigrated to places like the UK, Germany, and Austria in recent years.
It would be too far to ascribe every aspect of Hungary’s economy to Orbán’s governance. But this middling growth, combined with the fact that he uses economic subsidies as a patronage system to reward his allies, protect his political interests, and punish rivals does not speak highly of his stewardship of the economy.
How about pandemic management, one of the major grievances du jour of the conservative movement?
Hungary’s performance here is also not very impressive. At every step of the crisis, Orbán seemed more concerned with keeping the economy afloat rather than protecting the health of Hungarian citizens. Dr. Ferenc Falus, the former chief medical officer, criticized Orbán for lifting restrictions in November and December 2020 that led to a huge spike in mortality. Then in March of 2021, the government again scaled back restrictions despite suffering the highest mortality rate in the world at the time and as neighboring countries and the European Union imposed more containment measures. Instead, Hungary bet hard on the vaccines it acquired from Russia and China - vaccines that had not been fully approved or studied and that large majorities of Hungarians were unwilling to take. The government also shared misleading information to suggest these vaccines were more effective than EU-approved ones. All these efforts earned Hungary the dubious distinction of having the second-highest overall mortality rate in the world from COVID, without insulating it any better than other countries from the shock that roiled the global economy.
The real reason for conservative admiration of Hungary instead likely lies in Orbán’s aggressive promotion of conservative values and his efforts to turn Hungary into an insular place. He has rejected immigration and refugees, demonized the LGBT community, and attacked global institutions like the E.U. His government has also diverted 1% of Hungary’s GDP to establish a university to create a new conservative elite, created right-wing think tanks in Budapest, and sought to foster closer links with the conservative movement in the U.S.
Carlson and others of his ilk view Orbán and Hungary as an ally in the crusade against progressivism and in defense of traditional values. Now normally, this admiration might not be a cause for concern. Conservatives are free to admire leaders that embrace their values. But what’s troubling about conservative admiration for Hungary is that Orbán’s promotion of conservatism is inextricably linked with Hungary’s democratic decline. Indeed, his justification for all his authoritarian moves is that they are needed to combat the supposed threats posed by the groups he demonizes. When conservatives look to Hungary as a model, it’s not in spite of its authoritarianism but because of it. Hungary’s “illiberal democracy” is a model for big-government conservatism, where the power of the state is wielded to promote ideological goals.
Carlson is right when he tells us we should pay attention to Hungary, but not in the way he thinks. His and other conservatives’ embrace of Hungary shows they value their ability to impose retrograde values, restrict immigration, and demonize marginalized communities above everything else - economic growth, pandemic management - up to and including democracy itself. The next time conservatives praise Hungary, remember it’s not because they want to make our country better for most Americans, but because they want to make it a much better tool for their ideological goals.