Tucker Carlson joins the right-wing pilgrimage to Budapest
Tucker Carlson has become the latest and highest-profile figure on the American right to make a pilgrimage to Hungary.
Fans of Carlson's top-rated prime time show on Fox News learned Monday that he would be broadcasting all week from Budapest, where he would also be delivering a speech next weekend at MCC Feszt — a conference sponsored by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, a think tank recently granted $1.7 billion (about 1 percent of Hungary's GDP) by Prime Minister Viktor Orban in order to help foster the kind of nationalistic conservatism favored by his government. That includes kicking Central European University out of the country, banning the academic study of gender from colleges, allowing the ruling Fidesz Party to gobble up 90 percent of media in the country, and demonizing George Soros for cultural trends the prime minister's supporters dislike.
Carlson is unlikely to be the last conservative to pay hommage to Orban. John O'Sullivan, a one-time Thatcherite conservative who served as an editor of National Review through most of the 1990s, has been president of the Danube Institute in Budapest since 2017, bringing in a long list of American conservatives for conferences on right-wing populism and the threat of cancel culture.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In addition to a speech by Carlson, the MCC Feszt will include remarks by such prominent figures on the American right as Dennis Prager and Rod Dreher, the latter of whom has been living in Hungary and blogging effusively for The American Conservative about the Orban government for months. Dreher was joined a few months ago by Notre Dame's Patrick Deneen, author of surprise bestseller Why Liberalism Failed, for a lengthy discussion at MCC of the transnational conservative future.
All of which means that Hungary looks to be for populist conservatives in the 2020s what the Soviet Union was for the international left a century ago: a foreign model of a morally and politically edifying future. That doesn't mean or imply a moral equivalence between Orban's nationalism and Soviet communism. But it does point to a similarly transactional relationship. In return for providing earnest intellectuals with hope, a government often treated as an international pariah gets to enjoy a flood of fawning coverage when those ideologically engaged writers and talkers start sharing their carefully curated experiences with the world.
Time will tell if today's pilgrims turn out to be genuine prophets of the political future or just the latest band of useful idiots for a discredited and unsavory regime.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.
-
Today's political cartoons - November 23, 2024
Cartoons Saturday's cartoons - qualifications, tax cuts, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Long summer days in Iceland's highlands
The Week Recommends While many parts of this volcanic island are barren, there is a 'desolate beauty' to be found in every corner
By The Week UK Published
-
The Democrats: time for wholesale reform?
Talking Point In the 'wreckage' of the election, the party must decide how to rebuild
By The Week UK Published
-
Has the Taliban banned women from speaking?
Today's Big Question 'Rambling' message about 'bizarre' restriction joins series of recent decrees that amount to silencing of Afghanistan's women
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Cuba's energy crisis
The Explainer Already beset by a host of issues, the island nation is struggling with nationwide blackouts
By Rebekah Evans, The Week UK Published
-
Politicising the judiciary: Mexico's radical reform
Talking Points Is controversial move towards elected judges an antidote to corruption in the courts or a 'coup d'état' for the ruling party?
By The Week UK Published
-
Putin's fixation with shamans
Under the Radar Secretive Russian leader, said to be fascinated with occult and pagan rituals, allegedly asked for blessing over nuclear weapons
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Chimpanzees are dying of human diseases
Under the radar Great apes are vulnerable to human pathogens thanks to genetic similarity, increased contact and no immunity
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Deaths of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies hang over Sydney's Mardi Gras
The Explainer Police officer, the former partner of TV presenter victim, charged with two counts of murder after turning himself in
By Austin Chen, The Week UK Published
-
Quiz of The Week: 24 February - 1 March
Puzzles and Quizzes Have you been paying attention to The Week's news?
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Will mounting discontent affect Iran election?
Today's Big Question Low turnout is expected in poll seen as crucial test for Tehran's leadership
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published