Republicans Learn to Promote Fascism at the Feet of a Master (Hint: It's Not Trump)

[appalachiablue]

- Daily Kos, By Thom Hartmann, May 20, 2022. - Ed.

Republicans believe that Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán has figured out the “secret sauce” to turn a republic into a hard-right oligarchy, & today they’re in Budapest drinking deep from his insights on the fine points of destroying democracy. In 2 speeches this week, Orbán laid out his Hungarian version of the racist American “Great Replacement Theory,” trashed Jewish financier George Soros as a proxy for Jews around the world, reiterated the importance of having friendly rightwing billionaires seize control of a nation’s media, & attacked societies that allow gay marriage & tolerate trans people as engaging in “gender madness."

Orbán’s Fidesz Party & the GOP in most Red States have become virtually indistinguishable, from cronies owning the media, to packing the courts, to rigging elections through purging voters & gerrymanders, to putting polluting businesses in charge of regulatory agencies. Now both have their sights set on the US federal government. Seriously, both. Orbán is now inserting himself into US Republican politics in a big way. Steve Bannon celebrated Orbán as “Trump before Trump,” & Casey Michel on the NBC News site Think noted: “From targeting migrants to inflaming an ethnonationalist base, from attacking the press to whipping up nativist conspiracies, from ushering in unprecedented corruption to tearing down basic democratic protections, Trumpism is increasingly indistinguishable from Orbánism.”

In Aug. 1989, my best friend Jerry Schneiderman & I sat in outdoor cafes on the Buda side of the Danube River, eating extraordinary (& cheap!) food & exploring Budapest. Two months earlier there had been massive pro-democracy demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people demanding that the Soviet Union let Hungary go. The summer we were there, over a quarter-million came to Heroes’ Square for the reinterment of the body of Imre Nagy, a hero of the ill-fated 1956 rebellion against the USSR. The final speaker was 26-year-old Viktor Orbán, a rising politician who would soon be a member of Parliament. To an explosion of enthusiastic cheers, he defied the Soviets (the only speaker to overtly do so) & openly called for “the swift withdrawal of Russian troops.” Nine months later, in March of 1990 & with the approval of Gorbachev, Hungary held its first real elections since 1945; in 1999, it joined NATO; & in 2004, it became a member of the European Union.

For 20 years, Hungary was a functioning democracy; today, it’s a corrupt neofascist oligarchy.

In the few years after he was elected in 2010, Orbán, now fabulously wealthy & an oligarch, succeeded in transforming his nation’s government from a functioning European democracy into an autocratic & oligarchic regime of single-party rule. Republicans now want to do the same here, which will also promote the end of democracy around the rest of the world. Orbán took over the Fidesz Party, once a conventional “conservative” party like the GOP, with the themes of restoring “Christian purity” & “making Hungary great again.” His rallies regularly draw tens of thousands. He campaigned on building a wall across the entirety of Hungary’s southern border to keep out the “rapists & murderers” fleeing Russian violence in Syria, a promise he has largely kept. He altered the nation’s Constitution to enable what we’d call gerrymandering & voter suppression in much the same way Republicans now do across Red State America, ensuring that his party, Fidesz, would win a majority of the votes in pretty much every election well into the future.

He’s packed the courts just like Trump & McConnell did, particularly Hungary’s equivalent of the Supreme Court, so thoroughly that even the most serious legal challenges against him and his party go nowhere...

- More + Comments,
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/20/2099204/-Republicans-Learn-to-Promote-Fascism-at-the-Feet-of-a-Master-Hint-It-s-Not-Trump



- (R-L) Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Jair Bolsonaro (Salon, Nov. 2020).

https://www.salon.com/2020/11/01/viktor-orbns-use-and-misuse-of-religion-serves-as-a-warning-to-western-democracies_partner/

[keithbvadu2]

1. Those millions of republicans want an authoritarian gov't but they mistakenly think they will be the

Those millions of republicans want an authoritarian gov't but they mistakenly think they will be the few thousand elites actually in charge.

Those millions are useful tools for those who will actually be in charge.

One poster called it a 'new social feudalism age'.

[kimbutgar]

2. Maybe those red state republicans need to move to Hungary to get the government they want

Renounce their American citizenship, sell their assets and move there.

And don’t let the door hit them on the way out!

[appalachiablue]

3. The best idea I've heard in good while, TY!

Send Express Delivery, No Returns. Bravo!

[Harker]

4. Love it or leave it.

Really.

[KS Toronado]

5. Isn't Hungary where CPAC is currently holding a meeting?

Have they ever gone overseas to hold a meeting? And with NO U.S. media allowed, I'm sure FQX was
allowed to sneak in the back door. Are they over there to find out how to support Agolf Twitler's
employer Putler? Or they brushing up on how to destroy a Democracy? MSM needs more reporting.

[appalachiablue]

6. Yes, CPAC is now in Budapest, Hungary & the show started

Thursday, May 19. Tucker couldn't make it and other US news organizations were dissed- (below).

- CPAC Hungary: Far-Rt Orban Tells GOP Audience Path To Power Is Having Your Own Media, T Carlson 24/7
https://democraticunderground.com/1016323150

.. Journalists from international media outlets, including the New Yorker, Vox Media, Vice News, Rolling Stone, and the Associated Press, were denied access to the event despite months of requests. The organizers either ignored their requests for accreditation or told them to “watch the event online."

[GoldandSilver]

7. Beware - The Repugnants really are planning on taking your freedom.

Why would the American CPAC hold it’s convention in Hungary????

Because Hungary’s authoritarian leader, Orban,welcomes them with open arms to promote a new “band of brothers” with the intent of destroying democracy.

From CBS News:

“We need to take back the institutions in Washington and Brussels," Orban said Thursday, delivering the opening remarks for the conference in Budapest. "We need to find friends, and we need to find allies. We need to coordinate the movement of our troops, because we have a big challenge ahead of us."

The sons of bitches are literally planning a coordinated effort to kill American democracy right under our noses.

Can’t invite them to move to Russia, so they are planning on bringing Russia here.

Heads up folks - time to take the threats with deadly seriousness.