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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsViktor Orban dismantled Hungary's democracy. Conservatives love him.
From Vox.
.......
Andráss arrest is an unusually naked display of what Hungary has become a cautionary tale for what a certain kind of right-wing populist will do when given unchecked political power. Yet among a certain segment of American conservatives, Orbán is not viewed as a warning.
Hes viewed as a role model.
Advocates of illiberal democracy, like Trump and European far-right parties, aim to protect and deepen the specificity of each European countrys religious and ethnic makeup Hungary for the Hungarians, France for the French, and Germany for the Germans. Orbán frames this goal in precisely the culture war terms people like Dreher find so appealing.
Liberal democracy is in favor of multiculturalism, while Christian democracy gives priority to Christian culture, he said in a 2018 speech. Liberal democracy is pro-immigration, while Christian democracy is anti-immigration.
This language is at once incendiary and misleading. The rejection of liberalism infuriates mainstream European and Western intellectuals, thus further convincing the right that Orbán is the enemy of their primary enemy. But by framing his struggle as a conflict between two subspecies of democracy between liberal and Christian democracy Orbán obscures the fact that his regime is not any kind of democracy at all.
This insistence on falsely referring to his authoritarian regime as a democracy is vital to both its domestic and international project.
Orbán and much of his inner circle are lawyers by training; they have used this expertise to set up a political system that looks very much like a democracy, with elections and a theoretically free press, but isnt one. This gives intellectually sympathetic Westerners some room for self-delusion. They can examine Hungary, a country whose cultural politics they admire, and see a place that looks on the surface like a functioning democracy.
Extreme gerrymandering, voter ID laws, purging nonvoters from the voting rolls, seizing power from duly elected Democratic governors, packing courts with partisan judges, creating a media propaganda network that its partisans consume to the exclusion of other sources all Republican approaches that, with some nouns changed, could easily describe Fideszs techniques for hollowing out from democracy from within.
In this respect, Hungary really is a model for America. Its not a blueprint anyone is consciously aping, but proof that a ruthless party with less-than-majority support in the public can take durable control of political institutions while still successfully maintaining a democratic veneer.
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/21/21256324/viktor-orban-hungary-american-conservatives
Celerity
(43,988 posts)DTomlinson
(411 posts)Celerity
(43,988 posts)DTomlinson
(411 posts)roamer65
(36,749 posts)They should be expelling Hungary.
DTomlinson
(411 posts)Fuck Erdogan. Fuck all fascists.
DTomlinson
(411 posts)Think Erdogan might have something on Trump and/or Kushner re: the Saudis and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi?
Wasn't Flynn working for him?
Were there any potential business deals for Trump in Turkey?
Who knows...I don't know, but someone does, and whatever the truth of the matter is, it's surely criminal and corrupt in nature.
roamer65
(36,749 posts)Al Jazeera English a ways back had a good expose on the crime. They traced it back to MBS. No wonder the Saudis want Al Jazeera off the air so badly.
DTomlinson
(411 posts)This guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saud_al-Qahtani
According to Arab and Turkish sources, al-Qahtani organized the Khashoggi operation, even calling into the consulate via Skype to talk with and insult Khashoggi before telling the assembled team: "Bring me the head of the dog."[7] The Saudi state prosecutor announced on 15 November 2018 that 11 agents were indicted and 5 charged with murdering Khashoggi. He added that Al-Qahtani met the leader of the team that killed Khashoggi before it was dispatched to Turkey. Al-Qahtani was not arrested.[24] Saudi officials have never revealed the whereabouts of Khashoggis remains.
Prince Mohammed bin Salman exchanged at least 11 messages with al-Qahtani in the hours before and after the assassination of Khashoggi, leading the Central Intelligence Agency to conclude that Mohammed ordered Khashoggi's murder.[29] A member of the Saudi hit team, Maher Mutreb, also called al-Qahtani to inform him that the operation has been completed.[33
And Al-Jazeera, though it is run by Qatar and has its own biases obviously, actually is willing to do serious investigative journalism and is willing to publish the truth, in spite of those n power around the world who don't want to hear it.
That's what all dictators and would-be dictators fear - the people hearing the truth. So what they do is create their own version of the truth (political propaganda) to "compete" with honest journalism and news, whether it be Putin and Russia Today, MBS and his Saudi social media crew, or the US Republican Party, especially under Trump, with FOX News and talk radio.
Gotta control the message before the people hear it unfiltered. Knowledge is power, after all...
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)And possibly worse. I find this horrifying.
DTomlinson
(411 posts)Kick in to the DU tip jar?
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