Republican CPAC conference dissolves into a whole new level of madness
Viktor Orbán is not just some far-right leader. Admired by Donald Trump, Orbán is the proudly xenophobic white nationalist prime minister of Hungary whose favorite pastime is chipping away at what’s left of his country’s democratic institutions. This week, Orbán managed to trigger a long-time aide’s resignation after particularly over-the-top remarks. However, America’s conservatives were unfazed, revealing the extent of the growing rot within the Republican Party.
This past weekend, Orbán rallied supporters in Romania by warning against a “flood” of migrants being “forced” on Hungary. He sounded the alarm against Hungary becoming “mixed-race,” whitesplaining that countries with high racial mixing “are no longer nations” but a “conglomeration of peoples.” As an encore, Orbán later made an apparent joke about Nazi gas chambers, casually referring to “German know-how on that” when discussing the European Commission’s target for gas demand reduction.
Zsuzsa Hegedus, who stood with Orbán for two decades as a close adviser, had enough. Blasting the autocrat’s comments as a “purely Nazi diatribe worthy of Joseph Goebbels,” Hegedus wrote in a letter Tuesday that Orbán’s speech violated all her “basic values,” leaving her “no other choice” but to resign.
Orbán has been scheduled to appear in Dallas next week as a featured speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which describes itself as “the largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world.” In May, Orbán, along with the likes of Mark Meadows, Rick Santorum, and Candace Owens, spoke at the first-ever CPAC event in Hungary. Calling for a conservative takeover of the word, Orbán used his microphone to insist that shows like the one by “my friend, Tucker Carlson” should be broadcast “24/7.”
Despite Orbán’s latest heel-digging into hate and bigotry, American conservatives still believe he deserves to be one of their headliners next week. Thinking he comes across as reasonable, CPAC Chair Matt Schlapp said in an interview this week, “Let’s listen to the man speak… We’ll see what he says. And if people have a disagreement with something he says, they should raise it.” Here’s a better idea, Matt: how about we show up in droves on November 8 and vote the GOP out and into oblivion?
Ron Leshnower is a lawyer and the author of several books, including President Trump’s Month