American political commentator Dave Rubin came to Hungary a little over a month ago. In his brief time here, he made a handful of public appearances. Also, just recently, he interviewed Rod Dreher, another important US public figure, who is currently residing in Budapest.
Thus, in a curious twist of fate, one man hailing from New York City, New York, and another man originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana had a conversation about Hungary on top of the Lónyay-Hatvany villa, overlooking iconic Hungarian sights, such as the Parliament building, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, and the Danube River.
It became clear right at the beginning of the interview that they see both see a connection between Hungarian and American political life is. As Dreher put it,
‘I see the political future of conservatism in America being worked out here in Hungary, in Budapest.’
Both Rubin and Dreher have been disillusioned with American politics, with the woke left taking over more and more of it, and they both see Orbán as a successful template to follow in combating that.
Dreher went on to say:
‘The thing that Orbán sees that so many American conservatives don’t is that the left has colonised every institution of civil society. When I talk to Hungarians about what happened to our military, the CIA, big business, and to every other institution, they really can’t believe it.
Orbán saw a long time ago that this was happening and he knew the only way that traditional conservatives could stand up to what the NGOs, George Soros, and all the other “wokesters” and open borders people were doing was to use politics in an aggressive way. We don’t see that in our country. Ron DeSantis is the only one in our country at the senior level of Republican leadership who seems to get that.’
It is also obvious from the conversation that both men prefer Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as the Republican nominee in next year’s US presidential election, even if he is currently trailing former President Donald Trump by double digits in every poll. Still,
they see what Governor DeSantis has done in Florida as a good blueprint for conservatism in the US nationwide.
Also, Dreher sees clear parallels between DeSantis and Orbán. In the conversation, when he even went as far as describing the Florida governor as ‘pure Orbán’, in reference to his fight against the woke policies of the entertainment giant Disney and the removal of gender ideology from public schools.
Both Rubin and Dreher have met Prime Minister Orbán in person, and they had very pleasant first-hand experiences with him as well. They also agree that the American mainstream media gives a distorted picture of Hungary and its leader, some of which even people on the right might believe. However, when, for example, opposition PM candidate Péter Márki-Zay made the public comment ahead of the 2022 Hungarian election that his coalition is truly diverse because it has everyone from communists to fascists, no major Western media outlet covered it, as Rod Dreher pointed out.
Back in May, Rubin headlined and event organised by the Danube Institute, where he shared similar sentiments. He commended Hungarians for successfully keeping the pervasive woke ideology at bay in their country, praising actions by the Orbán administration such as the child protection law from 2021.
