Democracy Threatened By Hungarian Autocrat’s ‘Bromance’ With Trump
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The shock waves of increasing authoritarian and ultra-nationalism are spreading throughout Europe, sucking the U.S. into the maelstrom.
In recent days, a far-right party that wants to deport millions of immigrants has won the most votes in a German election for the first time since World War II. The leader of the party, Björn Höcke, was convicted this year of violating German law by using Nazi rhetoric.
Geert Wilders, a far right, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-EU, pro-Russia politician, who is called the “Dutch Donald Trump,” won a huge upsent election last year to the Dutch House of Representatives. Wilders has led the right-wing populist Party for Freedom (PVV) since he founded it in 2006. Hungary’s authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban cheered Wilders’ victory, saying, “The winds of change are here!”
Javier Milei, also referred to as an Argentine Donald Trump, was elected president with a vow to tear down Argentine government. Milei and El Salvador’s newly-elected, autocratic president, Nayib Bukele, both spoke at this year’s convention of the U.S. Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, a far right arm of the trump campaign.
When Bukele was inaugurated this summer, honored guests included trump’s son, Donald Jr.; trump sycophant and Russian apologist and backer, Tucker Carlson; and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who was a key player in trump’s losing effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
Trump has praised these and other autocrats, like Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Honduras’ Juan Orlando Hernandez, who is now serving a 45-year sentence in U.S. federal prison for drug trafficking.
One of trump’s more alarming bromances involves Orban, an anti-immigrant, pro-Russian, anti-LGBTQ autocrat, who has been carefully and persistently grooming relationships with U.S. far right lawmakers and organizations.
“There’s nobody that’s better, smarter, or a better leader than Viktor Orbán. He’s fantastic.… He’s a great leader,” trump said in March. In July, trump again praised Orbán in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.
Orbán has opposed sending arms to Ukraine, sanctioning Russian entities and individuals and letting Kyiv start the process of joining the pro-Western bloc.
Late last month , Orbán claimed in a speech that Hungary has “deep involvement” in the “programme-writing system of President Donald Trump’s team.” He warned that if Europe does not change its policy of “supporting the war” by financially backing Ukraine, then “after Trump’s victory it will have to do so while admitting defeat, covered in shame.”
Hungary, which recently assumed the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, is using as its slogan “Make Europe Great Again.”
In July 2022, Orbán spoke against the “mixing” of European and non-European races, adding, “We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race and we do not want to become a mixed race.” He declared that countries were “no longer nations” after different races blend. In May 2022, Orban promoted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory in a speech. The theory is popular on the far right and claims that liberals are trying to tip the population scales with immigrants who will support liberal ideas.
Trump has clearly glommed off of Orban’s political views. During 14 years in power, Orban has centralized power by dismissing judges, changing election rules to favor his party and appointing loyalists to key institutions. His government built a fence along Hungary’s southern border amid a migrant crisis in 2015 and passed stricter immigration policies. It tightened its grip on state media, reducing space for dissent.
Orbon also has promoted a Christian nationalist view of Hungarian society, sharply restricting transgender rights and adoption by same-sex couples, redefining marriage in the constitution to only cover unions between a man and a woman, and banning materials related to LGBTQ issues in schools.
Orban’s lobbying efforts in the U.S. have gone from local to national.
In early March 2024, Orban visited trump at Mar-a-Lago in a breach of diplomatic protocol that disapproves of foreign leaders meeting privately with un-elected U.S. politicians. President Joe Biden described Orbán as an authoritarian who has effectively unwound Hungarian democracy and was “looking for dictatorship.”
Further underscoring the relationship between Orban and the U.S. right wing, the Heritage Foundation has signed a cooperative agreement with the Danube Institute, the Orban propaganda arm.
Visiting researchers invited to the institute include Christopher Rufo, a prominent critique of critical race theory and gender ideology in the U.S.
The Heritage Foundation is a leading far right institute that published Project 2025, also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, a political blueprint to promote far right, un-democratic policies in a new trump administration.
America First Policy Institute, a think tank formed in 2021 to promote trump’s public policy agenda, also has worked with the Heritage Foundation and indirectly with Orban’s regime. The institute was founded by Brooke Rollins, who was formerly the acting director of the Domestic Policy Council under trump, and Larry Kudlow, who formerly served as the Director of the National Economic Council under trump. The chairwoman is Linda McMahon, who formerly served as administrator of the Small Business Administration under trump and then as chairwoman of America First Action, a pro-Trump Super PAC.
Orban drew cheers after his 2024 address to the CPAC gathering in Budapest where the autocratic leader endorsed trump for president and said that conservatives across the west are under attack by the liberal order. Orbán said the U.S. election in November will be a chance to usher in an “era of sovereignty” modeled on Hungary, which he called a “conservative island.”
“These elections coincide with major shifts in world political and geopolitical trends,” Orbán said. “The order of the world is changing, and we must usher our cause to triumph in the midst of these changes. Progressive liberals feel the danger. Replacing this era means replacing them.”
Other speakers at the event included far right media personality Jack Posobiec, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. and Geert Wilders, the anti-Islam lawmaker in Holland.
“Make America great again, make Europe great again!” Orbán told the CPAC group in Budapest, “Go Donald Trump! Go European sovereigntists! Let us saddle up, don our armor, take to the battlefield and let the electoral battle begin.”
Trump sent a pre-recorded video message to the conference in which he called Orbán “a great man” and hailed “so many patriots in Hungary who are proudly fighting on the frontlines of the battle to rescue Western civilization.”
Trump confidant, Steve Bannon, also presented a videotaped address, describing Hungary as “an inspiration to the world” and called Orbán “one of my heroes in the world today, in addition to President Trump.”
Bannon is currently in prison after he was found guilty for failing to respond to a subpoena issued to him by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by trump supporters.
Other speakers included lawmakers and political figures who were intimately involved in trump’s effort to retain power through unproven claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
Among them was Kari Lake, the trump supporter who claimed unsuccessfully that she lost the Arizona 2022 gubernatorial election, also because of voter fraud. Another speaker was trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows who is awaiting trial for his part in trying to rig the 2022 election.
Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md. said that “Hungary has become one of the most successful models as a leader for conservative principles and governance.” After the riot at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol by trump supporters, Harris downplayed the violence and said he understood the rioters’ frustrations and repeated false claims of election fraud.
Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., told the CPAC group that “Hungary’s immigration policy should serve as a model to the United States in terms of border, border security and immigration enforcement. I hope and pray one day that the United States might take a similar prioritization to the safety and security of its citizens.”
Gosar has gained notoriety for supporting various conspiracy theories, his extreme opposition to abortion and contraception, his alleged connections to Holocaust deniers, and his alleged ties to far-right militant groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
Orban also spoke at the CPAC gathering in Dallas in 2021 where he urged that U.S. conservatives and Hungarian conservatives join to commandeer “liberal” institutions in Washington and Brussels.
In March, Orban spoke at a closed-door meeting at the Heritage Foundation’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. He was joined by Heritage president Kevin Roberts and failed GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto also spoke before the Conservative Partnership Institute in 2022 about how to bring “peace in Ukraine.” Led by Mark Meadows and known as the “nerve center” of the MAGA movement, the institute has featured such far right lawmakers as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.
Audience members were given pamphlets pushing pro-Russia positions.
“Russia has the will, strength, and patience to continue war,” warned the document. “U.S aid to Ukraine must be severely constricted and Ukrainian President Zelensky should be encouraged by U.S. leadership to seek armistice and concede Ukraine as a neutral country.”
“If the U.S. continues to enable war, it will result in the destruction of Ukraine and provoke further Russian aggression toward the West, with the potential for nuclear conflict,” the document said.
Months before, Szijjarto was awarded an Order of Friendship medal, the highest Russian state decoration that can be given to a foreigner.
In April 2023, the state senate in Tennessee, a bastion of right wing, MAGA politics, was the first state to bring Orban and his authoritarian views to the U.S. The senate honored the Danube Institute and its director.
Republican Sen. Rusty Crowe explained how “amazing” Orbán’s speech had been at the CPAC conclave in Budapest because Orban noted the importance of “traditional Judeo-Christian values.”
The resolution commended the Danube Institute for its “abiding commitment to cross-cultural communication.” It said the institute “has been committed from its foundation to three philosophical loyalties: a respectful conservatism in cultural, religious, and social life; the broad classical liberal tradition in economics; and a realistic Atlanticism in national security policy.”
Crowe then introduced István Kiss, the Executive Director of the Danube Institute.
An article in the “Hungarian Conservative” explained that Kiss’s appearance showed that “American conservatives are happy to learn from good Hungarian practices” like banning the promotion of gender ideology in schools and educational institutions.
The Tennessee GOP has exercised its own form of authoritarian rule. Last April, the state senate voted to expel two African American senators for “breaking decorum” during a protest against the GOP’s inaction on enacting gun control legislation. Tennessee’s GOP also has banned drag performances, passed an abortion ban without exceptions, vowed to ban transgender youth care, and has attempted to ban any mention of LGBTQ+ people in school curriculums.
State Rep. Jerry Sexton (R) said he would be open to the idea of “burning” library books that would be vetoed by a politically appointed commission to oversee children’s access to books. GOP lawmakers have also worked to make the state increasingly gerrymandered in favor of Republicans and pass measures to limit the ability to vote.
The V-dem Institute at the Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, issued its annual Democracy in the World report for 2024.
It found that since 2009, the share of the world’s population living in autocratizing countries has overshadowed the share living in democratizing countries. The decline in democracy is stark in Eastern Europe and South and Central Asia.
The world has 91 democracies and 88 autocracies. But 71 percent of the world’s population — 5.7 billion people — live in autocracies — an increase from 48 percent ten years ago.
In Eastern Europe, 66 percent of the population live in electoral autocracies like Hungary, Russia, and Serbia. Harassment of journalists is increasing in 36 countries, including Hungary, Algeria and Poland. Seven countries are in the process of substantial democratic decline, including Hungary, Belarus, Croatia, Poland, Romania and Serbia.
Hungary ranks first among all 42 ongoing episodes of autocratization in terms of the magnitude of change.
“When Viktor Orbán and his anti-pluralist, Christian-nationalist Fidesz party came to power in 2010, they initiated incremental reduction of checks and balances,” the report noted. “A series of well-documented derailments of democracy over the years led to downgrading of Hungary to electoral autocracy in 2019.”
The European Parliament declared in 2022 that Hungary is no longer a democracy. In 2023, the Hungarian majority party, Fidesz, passed the “Protection of Sovereignty Act” “which opens for arbitrary scrutiny, giving virtually unlimited access to personal data, and comes with its own Office for the Protection of Sovereignty.”
The report noted that the 2024 U.S. presidential election will be “highly consequential” if trump wins. Trump “undermined American democracy substantially during his previous tenure, not least regarding media freedom, judicial independence, and executive oversight. Among the innumerable anti-democratic statements, Trump has called his opponents ‘vermin’ during campaign speeches, declared he wants to purge the Department of Justice and dismantle the FBI, pardon himself of federal crimes, and have journalists arrested.”
A second presidential term for Trump could have “significant ramifications also for democracy internationally given the United States’ key role in world affairs and the affinity for autocrats Trump sported during his first term,” the report noted.