This is fresh air, I'm Terry Gross, does Hungary offer a glimpse of our authoritarian future.

That's the title of a New Yorker article by my guest Andrew Moran's.

He writes quote,

American conservatives recently hosted their flagship conference, CPAC, in Hungary,

a country that experts call an autocracy.

Its leader, Victor Orbán, provides a potential model of what a Trump-after-Trump might look like.

Orbán's administration has rewritten parts of the Constitution, appointed judges who will do his bidding,

created voting rules that favor Orbán's party and make it hard for them to lose,

and has control over most media outlets.

What many liberals fear is a leader who, like Trump, would be able to fire up voters through fear,

racial dog whistles, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and disinformation.

But unlike Trump, would not only know how to weaken civic institutions and shatter norms,

but would also have a strategic political plan to maintain power and pass legislation,

instead of spending so much time watching TV and worrying about his media profile.

The next domestic conference organized by CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference,

will be held next month in Dallas.

One of the guest speakers will be Victor Orbán.

Andrew Moran's previously joined us in 2019 to talk about his book, Anti-Social,

Online Extremists, Techno-Yutopians, and the hijacking of the American conversation,

was based on several years of reporting on the far-rights use of social media.

We recorded the interview we were about to hear yesterday.

Let's start with a clip from Tucker Carlson's Fox News Show.

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