https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099680587/a-prominent-conference-of-american-conservatives-is-taking-place-in-hungaryPrinceton sociologist Kim Scheppele, an expert on Hungarian politics, says Trump's relationship with Orban is different than the typical good relations an American president might have with a foreign leader.
"All of the international democracy rating agencies agree that Hungary is no longer a democracy. And the U.S. hasn't had a president be best buddies with a dictator before," Scheppele says.
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"All the culture war campaigns have been used to disguise the fact that, by law, Orban has been limiting the democratic space. And he's done that particularly by rigging the election laws and then capturing all of the independent agencies that could tell him no," she said.
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"What Orban has really perfected is how to keep reelecting leaders whose aspirations are absolutely not to maintain a democracy, but rather the opposite: to lock in power forever to a small group of people. When you raise that question now in the United States, people don't automatically say that's a bad idea."
What Orban is doing is not only not a bad idea to conservative thought leaders like Dreher, it's an existential necessity.
I guess the CPAC Republicans are being very open about their disdain for democracy, free press, and human rights. They'll yell freedom, gays, Mexican invasion, CRT, or anything that isn't their increasingly open goal of "we are intent on deconstructing democracy in America as long as we're the ones in charge when democracy dies."
