Uncle Orban is coming to CPAC: Part 1

CPAC’s Uncle Orban is coming to Dallas. He has been invited to spread an unholy gospel on American soil. He is an apostle of pessimism and racial purity. He is seen as strong by his believers, and shares a deep contempt for democracy with them.

He enthralled the American extremist cause in Budapest, where he hosted CPAC’s global fascist palooza a few months back. During that speech, the Prime Minister of Hungary encouraged his American friends in their mission to wreck American institutions and democracy. Orban and his American host Matt Schlapp share a set of beliefs. JD Vance, Blake Masters, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, the Claremont Institute, Heritage Foundation and a bevy of groups share these beliefs. When we hear new words put together to describe new beliefs it takes a while to understand what they mean and orient towards them.

There have been “Blue Dog Democrats” and “Bourbon Democrats.” There have been “New Democrats,” “Southern Democrats,” “Dixie Democrats,” and the list goes on. There have been “Know Nothings” and “Whigs.” There have been “Reagan Republicans” and “Rockefeller Republicans.” Then there was MAGA, which followed “The Apprentice,” and presaged “National Conservatism.”

“National conservatism” and “Orbanism” are one and the same.  It is a political philosophy built on a conviction about civilization. It is forged on a foundation of unshakeable belief and a sense of urgency about time’s finite nature and the fear of ever-looming collapse. The collapse is ever-present because of the geographic position of Orbanism and national conservatism.

They are both grounded in “encirclement theory.”  Both movements are reliant on doctrine that portrays them as surrounded, embattled and facing constant extinction at the hands of an uncivilized horde that is encroaching from all sides. Paranoia, conspiracy and danger constantly loom. They breed delusions of treachery and a vast garden of lies to maintain the fictions, explain the contradictions, and make plausible the madness.

Orbanism and national conservatism share a great hope. They have a mythical belief in the power of an individual to set things right. This individual is unequal against the movement, just as the movement and party is unequal against the whole of society. The movement is restricted and pure. It is not seeking to persuade. It seeks to impose and enforce because the stakes are so high. This is where democracy is rejected as being the enemy of freedom. Democracy is a system that shares power and grants an equal vote to citizens, who are equal under the law. This means that people from different cultures, races and religions have equal standing and that an idea is the organizing foundation of society.

This is what is rejected by Orbanism, MAGA, CPAC, Matt Schlapp, Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump and national conservatism. Viktor Orban talked about this in a speech on July 23, 2022. Their view is that such equality will wreck civilization and destroy freedom. It is not a new idea.

Here it is in a nutshell:

“What is Europe? There is no fitting geographical definition of our Continent, but only a national and cultural one.

Not the Urals form the frontier of our Continent, but the eternal line which divides the Eastern and Western conceptions of life. There was a time when Europe was that Greek Island into which Nordic tribes had penetrated in order to light a torch for the first time which from then onwards began slowly, but surely to brighten the world of man. When these Greeks repulsed the invasion of the Persian conquerors, they did not only defend their homeland, which was Greece, but that idea which we call Europe today. And then Europe traveled from Hellas to Rome. With the Greek spirit and Greek culture, the Roman way of thinking and Roman statesmanship were joined. An Empire was created which, to this day has not been equaled in its significance and creative power, let alone outdone. When, however, the Roman legions were defending Rome against the African onslaught of Carthage and at last gained a victory, again it was not Rome they were fighting for, but the Europe of that time, which consisted of the Greek-Roman world.

The next incursion against this homestead of European culture was carried out from the distant East. A terrible stream of barbarous, uncultured hordes sallied forth from the interior of Asia deep into the hearts of the European Continent, burning, looting, murdering-a true scourge of the Lord. In the battle of the Catalonian fields the (West?) was formed. On the ruins of Rome, the West was built, and its defence was a task, not only of the Romans, but also above all of the Teutons (Germans). In centuries to come the West, enlightened by Greek culture, built the Roman Empire and then expanded by the colonization of the Teutons was able to call itself Europe. Whether it was the German Emperor who was repelling the attacks from the East on the Field of Lech or whether Africa was being pushed back from Spain in long fighting, it was also a struggle of Europe, coming into being, against a surrounding world alien in its very essence. Once Rome had been given its due for the creative defense of this continent, Teutons took over the defense and the protection of a family of nations which might still differentiate and differ in their political structure and objective, but which nevertheless represented a cultural unity with blood ties. And it was from this Europe that a spiritual and cultural abundance went out, of which everyone must be aware who is willing to seek truth instead of denying it.

Thus it was not England who brought culture to the Continent, but the offspring of Teutonic nationhood on the Continent who went as Anglo-Saxons and Normans to that Island made possible a development in a way surely unique. In just the same way, it was not America who discovered Europe, but the other way around. And everything which America has not drawn from Europe may well appear worthy of admiration to a juda-ised, mixed race; Europe, on the other hand, sees in it a sign of cultural decay.

Deputies and Men of the German Reichstag, I had to make this survey, for the fight which, in the first months of this year, gradually began to become clear, and of which the German Reich is this time called to be the leader also far exceeds the interests of our nation and country. Just as the Greeks once faced the Persians in war, and the Romans faced the Mongolians, the Spanish heroes defended not only Spain, but the whole of Europe against Africa, just so Germany is fighting today, not for herself, but for the entire Continent. And it is a fortunate symptom that this realization is today so deep in the subconscious of most European nations that, whether by taking up their position openly or whether by the stream of volunteers, they are sharing in this struggle.”

These were the words of Adolf Hitler in a speech from December 11, 1941, declaring war on the United States of America. Like Orban, Hitler couldn’t stay out of US domestic politics. He referred to President Roosevelt as the “husband of that woman.”

Orbanism and national conservatism are Hitlerism. What Hitler believed and what he and his gangster regime did are two different things. The second built on the first.

The main difference between Hitlerism and Orbanism is the Hitler chapter of the oldest lie in humanity has ended. We know the decrepit Fuhrer of the 1,000-year Reich blew his brains out after poisoning his dog and wife in a dank bunker. His half-burned body was seized by Russian troops secreted back to Moscow, where many years later it was fully turned to ash and flushed down a sewer. The ending was satisfactory – if not fully happy – because, though Hitler is gone, the madness and evil of his dream are not.

The contest is underway again because of the inability of human beings to remember the tragedies that occurred just before their existence that gave shape to every single thing around them. It is a childlike obliviousness that is shared by most of society. Hitler was an enigma and then a cartoon. He became humanity’s greatest monster, but he was a man, not Voldemort.

He was not a buffoon. He was a believer. So is Matt Schlapp and Viktor Orban.

Hitler ended his war speech with a prayer:

There will no doubt be such beseechments in Dallas. Wherever it is they land, it isn’t in the same place where FDR’s landed.

Stay tuned for Uncle Orban is coming to CPAC: Part 2 tomorrow.