Why the Hell is the Right Embracing Victor Orbán? Matt Continetti on Why Some American Conservatives Are Speaking with a Hungarian Accent
What the Hell Is Going On
AEI Podcasts
4.4 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2022
⏱️ 58 minutes
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Summary
A few weeks ago, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán gave a keynote address at the U.S. Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Given Orban's tight relationship with Putin and his aggressive brand of Euro-xenophobia, many American liberals and conservatives alike were shocked. But Orban's speech at CPAC -- and CPAC's own meeting in Hungary -- is part of a larger shift on the American Right; indeed, this is a throwback to the Right of the 1930s. As traditional Reaganites wonder what happened to "peace through strength," is it time to ask how "national conservatism" and Reagan-conservatism can live together? And who is the leader that can show the way?
These questions and more with Matthew Continetti. Continetti is a senior fellow and the inaugural Patrick and Charlene Neal Chair at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of an important new book, The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is brought to you by the American Enterprise Institute. |
| 0:03.0 | If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and share. Thanks for listening. Here's our show. What the hell's going on? What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on? I don't know what the hell he's talking about. You don't have to know what the hell is on it. What hell's the matter with these guys? We don't know what's going on. What hell's going on? |
| 0:01.1 | Who in God's name knows what it's all about. |
| 0:34.9 | Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka. |
| 0:36.1 | Welcome to our podcast. |
| 0:38.1 | What the hell is going on? |
| 0:40.1 | Mark, what the hell is going on? |
| 0:42.0 | What the hell is going on is there is a strain of conservatism that has embraced the politics of Victor Orban, who is the prime minister of Hungary. |
| 0:52.7 | And Matt Contenany had a great column in the Wall Street Journal |
| 0:55.6 | about how the American right is starting to speak with a Hungarian accent. |
| 0:59.2 | Victor Orban is a conservative nationalist leader of Hungary. |
| 1:03.3 | He was recently invited to speak at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, in Dallas. |
| 1:08.4 | And not only that, CPAC actually went and had a CPAC Budapest, |
| 1:12.7 | where they sort of embraced Orbanism in its entirety. |
| 1:16.8 | And this is a strain on the right that is sort of perplexing to me, concerning to me, |
| 1:21.5 | because I think there's parts of it that are more concerning than others. |
| 1:24.3 | But particularly what's concerning is that Victor Orban, who many on the right |
| 1:28.7 | are embracing, is the possibly in Western Europe the number one ally of Vladimir Putin, |
| 1:35.7 | who he's been a long time ally of Putin. He's pushing for a stop to like the aid to Ukraine. |
| 1:41.1 | And sort of he's a fellow traveler with this KGB agent who's running Russia |
| 1:46.1 | and turning it into a fascist new Soviet Union. And I just find it perplexing that American |
| 1:52.7 | conservatives would embrace someone who embraces Putin in this way. |
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