Hungarian success in befriending American conservatives on display as Orban faces down possible defeat

Vice President JD Vance offered a high-profile demonstration of support for Orban on Tuesday, when he traveled to Hungary to meet with Orban and address his supporters. In a speech before thousands of people in Budapest, Vance stressed the Christian faith, opposition to supranational organizations, emphasis on heritage, immigration restrictionism, and historical ties that unite American conservatives to their Hungarian counterparts. Support for Hungary is just as strong, if not stronger, among conservative media.

Right-wing media titan Dave Rubin, who has long had friendly relations with Hungary, published a friendly interview with Orban’s political director and co-partisan, Balazs Orban, on March 27, for instance. In the context of the looming election, Orban described Hungary’s ruling party as “the Hungarian patriots who are trying to save our people” by “not letting migrants in” and fighting “the woke ideology,” talking points that would appeal to Rubin’s audience of American conservatives.

In a similar vein, Mario Nawfal, one of the largest right-wing content creators on X, published a sympathetic interview with Orban on March 25. During the interview, which has been viewed over 2 million times, Nawfal allowed the Hungarian prime minister to portray himself as an ardent nationalist, advocate for traditional religion, close ally to President Donald Trump, and immigration hawk, all traits that would boost his image among American conservatives. Legions of other conservative accounts have, as election day approaches in Hungary, offered praise of Orban along similar lines and stressed the importance of his regime’s survival to Western conservatism.

“Wall Street Mav,” a conservative account boasting 1.7 million followers, for instance, posted a video of Orban on March 28 in which the prime minister claims that Ukraine attempted to route money to the Democratic Party ahead of the 2024 election and that the country is attempting to do the same thing in his upcoming election. Right-wing actor and comedian Rob Schneider, meanwhile, told his 2.2 million followers that “a victory for [Orban] is a victory for Hungary.” Their views are largely representative of conservatives online.

But Hungary’s importance to the American Right isn’t confined to a few corners of the internet. A Trump administration favorite In addition to Vance’s visit, Trump himself has endorsed Orban’s reelection bid. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for his part, has described U.S.-Hungary relations as having entered a “golden age,” saying that “this relationship we have here in central Europe through you is so essential and vital for our national interests in the years to come.”

The pro-Orban sentiment so common among conservatives today follows years of efforts spearheaded by the Fidesz government to popularize his model of statecraft among American conservatives. At the center of this effort was public intellectual Rod Dreher. Dreher, who has a long history as a conservative columnist, has been open about being paid by the Hungarian government to build alliances on its behalf with U.S. conservatives.

Hungary, he told Foreign Policy in a May 2023 interview, seeks to use people like him to “provide a counter-narrative to the one that prevails in Washington and Brussels and among the American and Western European media.” Dreher, who remains a staunch advocate of Orban, acknowledged that the infrastructure Orban was building then could continue to serve his ends even if he is ousted from power. Vance and Dreher, notably, have a close relationship, with the latter being instrumental in the former’s conversion to Catholicism.

“I think one of the reasons that the Orban government is building up all these institutions using government funds and government power is because he knows he’s not going to be prime minister forever,” he said.

“Fidesz is not going to be in government forever, and he wants to have some sort of deep state built that will be able to survive whoever is coming.” Dreher takes credit for many of the initial contacts between Hungarian political operatives and heavy hitters on the American right. He, for instance, claims to have arranged Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s 2021 interview with Orban, a media event that served as an introduction to the Hungarian prime minister for many American conservatives.

What’s more, Dreher was also present alongside Rubin at a May 2023 event at the Hungarian state-backed Danube Institute. Webpages maintained by the state-backed think tank indicate that Rubin has been in contact with it since at least 2021, where he also appeared alongside Dreher, and that he has since made semi-regular appearances at the institution. Following his introduction to Hungarian conservatives, Rubin has put out a fair amount of apologia for the Orban regime.

These have included a documentary defending Orban’s Hungary from criticism, releasing multiple videos praising Hungary’s conservative credentials, and regular attendance at CPAC Hungary, a state-backed political conference held annually in Budapest. As a homosexual, Rubin has used his identity to push back against claims that Orban’s government treats the LGBT community unfairly. CPAC Hungary itself has emerged as a sort of transatlantic Mecca for Western conservatives, successfully getting right-wing European politicians into the same rooms as members of Congress and influential American media figures.

Dreher and Rubin did not respond to requests for comment. Think tanks like the Danube Institute have been a key part of Hungary’s effort to influence American conservatives. In some cases, think tanks have directly paid American conservatives with the aim of influencing their peers.

The state-funded Batthyany Lajos Foundation, the parent organization of the Danube Institute, for instance, paid activist Chris Rufo $35,000 for approximately a month of work in 2023 and writer Michael O’Shea $4,500 a month for his work, according to documents obtained by the Hungarian-language news outlet Atlatszo. O’Shea was tasked with writing articles for American and European media, whereas Rufo did multimedia work.

“I spent time over there because of my love of the region,” O’Shea told the Washington Examiner.

“I’m a Polish citizen and Polish-speaker, and I started studying Hungarian during COVID, which is what brought me there. I know/knew many in the expat community in Budapest, and the only thing uniting us was that nothing in particular united us.” O’Shea noted that, while his works touches on politics, his ultimate aims aren’t moored to political parties or individual elections.

“This is my life’s work, irrespective of parties and elections,” he told the Washington Examiner.

“Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, particularly, are close to my heart, and I hope those countries are recognizable and thriving long after I’m gone, long after my great-grandchildren are gone. I don’t think of my writing as being part of the ‘American Right’ or serving any kind of political movement. Most people in the anglosphere don’t follow this region, and those who do get their opinions from a small number of people with a contemptible worldview.

That’s why I have something to contribute. That’s why I do what I do.” Rufo, like Dreher, was upfront about his work with the Hungarian government while he was doing it.

In 2023, Rufo wrote a widely read piece in Compact titled “What Conservatives See in Hungary,” where he disclosed the fellowship. Scores of other conservative Americans benefited from contracts with Batthyany Lajos Foundation and the Danube Institute over the years, most of whom were similarly tasked with producing media.