Hungary’s Orbán tells CPAC: ‘We must coordinate a movement of our troops’ to fight liberal order
Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s controversial prime minister and an ally of former President Trump, issued a call for conservatives in Europe and the United States to unite in the fight against the liberal global order, in remarks delivered to the Conservative Political Action Committee in Texas on Thursday.
Orbán, who has exercised authoritarian rule over Hungary and employed rhetoric evoking Nazi propaganda, criticized the Biden administration as displaying weak leadership on the global stage and putting Brussels, the seat of the European Union, under “ideological pressure.”
“We must take back the institutions in Washington and in Brussels,” Orbán said.
The Hungarian leader’s remarks were largely met with cheers from the audience, which also issued loud boos when Orbán brought up billionaire-philanthropist and Democratic donor George Soros.
Soros, who is Jewish and Hungarian-American, is a high-profile target of the conservative right, with some criticism tying in antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Orbán called Soros his “opponent” and attacked him as having an “army at his service,” citing civil society and largely independent institutions like non-governmental organizations, universities and the civil service.
Some Republicans in the U.S. view Orbán’s tenure as laying the groundwork for the far-right conservative movement internationally. His appearance in Texas followed his delivering a keynote address at a CPAC conference in Budapest in May, the first-ever European conference for the organization.
The Hungarian leader said he had come to Texas to tell the audience “how you should fight. My answer is play by your own rules.”
“We must coordinate a movement of our troops because we face the same challenge,” he continued, calling the 2022 midterm elections and 2024 presidential and congressional elections part of “the fight for civilization.”
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In a speech in Romania last month, Orban spoke out against European Union sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and said that Washington should negotiate with Moscow over Kyiv’s fate.
His speech was criticized a “Nazi diatribe” by his long-time advisor Zsuzsa Hegedus, who resigned in over remarks in which he doubled down on wanting an “unmixed Hungarian race.”
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Hungary’s Orbán tells CPAC: "We must coordinate a movement of our troops" to fight liberal order https://t.co/orGX4tO3rd pic.twitter.com/370g8JgLYw
— The Hill (@thehill) August 4, 2022
The poster boy of the International Alt Right gets standing ovations from CPAC. https://t.co/haPLbX6ltB
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) August 4, 2022
Nah bro https://t.co/9H886Ul7Xc
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) August 4, 2022
Orban is speaking to a group of radical extremists who have hijacked the word, “conservative” to apply to themselves when, in reality, they are far from conservative. Rather, they are a group of rabid Trumpies determined to install their guy as dictator like Orban or any of the other dictators Trump embraces. Real conservatives do not believe in authoritarian regimes.
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