Republicans’ Embrace of One of the World’s Worst
Orban has returned the favor, telling a CPAC Hungary (yes, that happened) crowd that the key to power for the American right was to have their own media — or, in other words, propaganda outlets. He then proceeded to call Fox just that, saying: “Only friend Tucker Carlson places himself on the line without wavering,” and “programs like his should be broadcasted day and night.”
Steve Bannon, freshly convicted on contempt of Congress charges and also appearing at CPAC, once called Orban “the most significant guy on the scene right now,” and “Trump before Trump.” Bannon has tried to do for Orban in Hungary what he did for Trump in America, saying, “All I’m trying to be is the infrastructure, globally, for the global populist movement.”
And, despite his detestable recent comments, where Orban said of Hungary, “We do not want to become peoples of mixed-race” or join in Western Europe’s “mixed-race world,” CPAC will all too happily host him.
Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, has justified his appearance by sheepishly hiding behind non-existent threats of cancel culture, saying, “When we silence people we skip the chance to learn why [we] agree or disagree [with] their POV.”
The funny thing is, the new far-right never does go ahead and disagree with people like Orban, because they don’t. It’s obvious to a fifth grader that the point of these invitations is to elevate Orban and other terribles, not warn voters off their bad ideas.
Orban isn’t the first or only strong man CPAC is cuddling up to. In 2021, Brazil’s so-called “Trump of the Tropics,” President Jair Bolsonaro, spoke at CPAC Brasil, where Don Jr also live streamed in from the U.S. At the 2022 event, his son, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro spoke alongside Trump aide Jason Miller. The younger Bolsonaro is also speaking at the Texas CPAC this week.
What’s next? A CPAC Russia? A Vladimir Putin address at the next CPAC Texas? With the right’s growing embrace of dictators and autocracies, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.
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(S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.)
©2022 S.E. Cupp. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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