Authoritarian/ Christofascist evangelicals in America have long had an affinity for the "pro- family, traditional values" nostrums of Russian war criminal Putin, whose rhetoric and actions closely align with their anti- LGBTQ, anti- immigrant, anti- democracy goals. With his on- going butchery in Ukraine, however, it's become untenable for many leading Christofascist evangelical leaders to associate themselves or their movement with Putin.
Former evangelical Chrissy Stroop has been watching these alliances over the past decades and believes these American authoritarian Christofascists have found a new foreign strongman to admire and emulate: Hungary's Viktor Orbán:
... a thorn in the side of the EU who promotes what he calls “illiberal democracy” and has stifled dissent against his hardline, nativist, socially conservative agenda.
Orbán is already the darling of certain far-Right Americans, such as the arch-reactionary writer Rod Dreher, a convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, a cradle Episcopalian. And his brand will likely receive a major boost when the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meets in Budapest next month.
In some ways, Orbán is a more natural political role model for authoritarian evangelicals than Putin. A Calvinist himself, Orbán’s right-wing populist Fidesz party won another huge majority in the Hungarian parliament earlier this month, while Orbán himself won a fourth term as prime minister. This was thanks in large part to the backing of Hungarian evangelicals who, on the whole, find his anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ platform appealing. [snip]
With this in mind, and given the general right-wing American embrace of Orbán that is well under way, it is likely that the American Christian Right will move to build closer ties to the Hungarian premier, the Fidesz party and Christian structures inside Hungary.
It’s important to keep an eye on these developments for those of us concerned about international coalitions working to oppose women’s and LGBTQ rights, whether or not Orbán comes to loom as large among America’s elite evangelicals as Putin once did.
Orbán's recent electoral victory, the result of rigged election rules and focused media messaging (sound familiar?), was further proof of Hungary's descent from a democracy to an authoritarian state. It's the kind of "illiberal democracy" that's clearly no democracy at all, but rather a government that blurs the lines between state and party and religion to reign without checks and balances -- what we would call a Republican paradise.
Fortunately, we saw the defeat of Orbán- like far- right authoritarians, France's Le Pen and Slovenia's Jansa, in elections last week. The ebb and flow of the battle for democracy continues in Europe, America, and around the world.
(Image: three stooges/ screenshot via Salon)
