By Nathanael Blake
Friday, April 20, 2018
If you get your news from the mainstream media, you might
think that Hungary just suffered a fascist coup. What actually happened is
that, in fair and free elections, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his
center-right Fidesz Party easily won another term by defeating a divided
opposition led by mediocrities.
The overwrought media response to a free election in a
small Central European nation reveals far more about the media than it does
about Hungary. Throughout that nation, the freedoms of speech, press and
assembly are being exercised against Orbán and his party. This is more than can
be said for the European countries whose media and cultural elites are
denouncing the Hungarian PM. They do everything that they accuse Orbán of — and
worse.
In France, the government has aggressively prosecuted
opposition leader Marine Le Pen for tweets criticizing Islamic State brutality.
The persecution of opposition leaders on trumped-up charges is one of the key
indicators of actual repressive government, but those in the media denouncing
Hungary are silent regarding France.
In the UK, the ostensibly conservative government is
imprisoning people for making tasteless jokes on social media, when it can
spare time from confiscating kitchen knives. But such illiberalism in Europe’s
“liberal democratic” nuclear powers has not given rise to histrionics in
prominent mainstream publications and institutions. It is at most tut-tutted
at.
In Germany, the chancellor decided to unilaterally remake
the population of Europe — again. This decision was received with raptures by
media and cultural elites; the people who had to bear the burdens of this
illiberal and undemocratic act of German imperialism were less delighted.
Indeed, much of Orbán’s continuing popularity derives from having been the
first European leader to stand up to Germany’s decision to dictate immigration
policy to the rest of the EU. The German leader who decided that all of Europe
must obey Deutschland is celebrated, while the representative of a small nation
who resisted is decried as an undemocratic dictator.
The accusations against Hungary by the American Left are
just as hypocritical. Although gerrymandering is one of our oldest political
traditions — one that Democrats remain enthusiastic about when they get the
opportunity to indulge in it — Orbán is condemned for it. Those who are
hysterical over Russia possibly influencing American elections are appalled
that Orbán wants to regulate the flow of foreign cash meddling in Hungarian
politics and culture. Those who have demonized the Koch brothers have the
vapors because Orbán did the same to George Soros. The media that
overwhelmingly backed President Obama and almost-president Hillary Clinton
complains that supporters of Orbán and Fidesz control too much of the Hungarian
media.
The list of examples from both sides of the Atlantic is
extensive to the point of tedium. There are reasonable criticisms of Orbán to
be made (regarding cronyism, for instance), but his critics in Western
government and media accuse him of nothing that they have not done or supported
themselves. Those who spent years attempting to force elderly nuns to subsidize
and facilitate the distribution of birth control, and who are now literally
criminalizing using the “wrong” pronouns for persons who identify as
transgender, lack the moral authority to lecture anyone else about
illiberalism.
Their hypocrisy abounds, and pointing it out is not mere
whataboutism, for it illuminates that elites in both Europe and the United
States are increasingly autocratic. Their professed concerns for liberty and
democracy are fraudulent, meant to mask their attempts to accrue and
consolidate power.
They hate Orbán, not because he is illiberal and
undemocratic (he may be, but he is no more guilty of these charges than they
are), but because he is an obstacle to their rule and represents an alternative
that other nations might emulate. He wants Hungary to remain Hungary — neither
assimilated into a pan-European identity nor overwhelmed by migrants. That Hungary
and other Western nations have cultures worth preserving is an alien thought to
media and cultural elites, despite their incessant talk of multiculturalism.
The best of Western civilization is open to anyone, but this does not mean that
national cultures are irrelevant and borders obsolete.
Populist movements and governments are a symptom of the
West’s crisis, not a cause. In Europe, support for supposedly undemocratic
populist politicians and parties is driven by the actually undemocratic
policies of the European elite, such as one nation setting immigration policy
for the entire continent. In the United States, support for the oafish
illiberalism of Donald Trump is in large part a response to the more
respectable and polished illiberalism of the Left, such as the persistent
efforts to force religious nonconformists to promote and participate in
celebrating same-sex wedding ceremonies.
One need not support populist leaders and movements to be
disgusted by the routine hypocrisy of their critics. I have no personal stake
in Hungarian politics, or that of any European nation. But it is clear that the
Left no longer offers a liberal democratic alternative to someone like Orbán,
if it ever did. Those who claim to champion liberal democracy should examine
themselves before condemning others.
Critics of liberalism, such as Patrick Deneen, are being
vindicated as supposedly liberal leaders and institutions suppress liberty and
treat essential rights like the freedoms of religion and speech as expendable.
If the trans-Atlantic elite want liberal democratic alternatives to the likes
of Orbán and Trump, then they must offer some.
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