by Mary Fahnestock-Thomas, Hamilton
Can you help me understand why one of the main speakers at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, this month is Vikton Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary?
No, never mind. He hosted the CPAC meeting in Budapest in May, so of course they must reciprocate. But they (led by Tucker Carlson?) seem to be courting him, which seems pretty weird to me.
Hungary is in what used to be called Eastern Europe; it is not quite as large as our state of Indiana (less than a quarter the size of Montana) and has a population of not quite 10 million people (the US has 329.5 million). It stopped being communist with the end of the Soviet Union in 1989 and called itself a parliamentary democracy, and then Mr. Orbán came along in 2010, a time of increasing social unrest in that general part of the world (think Syrian civil war, Arab Spring, etc.) and got elected by Hungarians afraid of change.
Well, he decided the best way was to go with a “Christian democracy,” so he had most of the established Hungarian civil servants replaced by his own loyalists, who would do what he told them. Democratic? Hardly, and Christian only as long as he gets to decide what that means. Ah, Putin! Ah, Trump!
Was inviting him to speak the next step after seven of our elected (Republican) officials visited Russia on July 4th, 2018, ostensibly to warn Mr. Putin not to meddle in American elections? (It was six Senators, including our own Steve Daines, and one member of the House.) Did they really think they had anything to say to Putin, especially when the currently elected Republican President appeared to be his toady?
Enough. Sorry, I get weirded out by this stuff. Why are American legislators cozying up to leaders of states that are quite different from the USA in size, population, history, and culture and who really don’t seem to be very nice people?
You may say that politics isn’t about being “nice people,” but about winning and getting to do things your way. I disagree. All the sciences, both social and physical, demonstrate more and more often that we are all part of one organism, all leaves of one tree, if you will, and that by ignoring that fact, we can destroy ourselves quickly enough.
Can we think about this?