‘In contrast to five years ago, the legitimacy of the Commission’s former and future President has been weak from the start in 2024. Although she is a Spitzenkandidat now, as she was the leader of the European People’s Party list in the European Parliament elections, the support of the leaders of the Member States is much weaker. In Germany, she is considered an opposition politician, so she is not a favourite but rather a forced choice for the governing coalition.’

‘Today, the Hungarian capital is part of the ongoing political discussion at the highest levels of American political life—for better or for worse. Hungary is either a symbol of all that is bad in the Western world—that’s how progressives, liberals, and neoconservatives see it; or it’s a plucky resister to globalism, social liberalism, and mass migration, a laboratory for a new kind of right-of-center policymaking.’

‘Mass immigration has changed the face of Europe. This is not to say that all immigrants are evil, but we would be blind to ignore the growing social, ethnic and religious tensions and security challenges that mass migration has brought to Europe in recent decades. As many have pointed out several times, one of the first victims of this is European Jewry.’

‘Voters have been grossly ignored. The people of Budapest voted for change: in fact, most Budapesters rejected the Karácsony-led alliance. But now it seems that the backroom deals, and the distribution of positions, power, and money to incompetent cronies will continue to define Budapest’s leftist politics. The party with the most votes, Fidesz, has been entirely left out of the assembly-forming negotiations.’

‘Leaders who carry the banner of nationalism recognize that they need strong administrative, economic, and military incentives to shape their inhabitants into nations. Without this, their task to successfully contend with other states in the international environment would be in vain.’

‘Although the political forces thinking in terms of a European alternative failed to replace the Brussels Grand Coalition in the 2024 EP elections, there is a real chance that they could organize themselves into a new right-wing pole in the next five years, which could bring about a real systemic change in Brussels politics.’

‘For us Hungarians it is easy to empathize with Americans over their national tragedy, 9/11, given Hungary’s centuries-long history of tragic events. In many ways, 9/11 is similar to Trianon—the greatest national tragedy of the country. The most significant parallel is that, like Trianon, the memory of 9/11 unites the nation often divided in everyday life, regardless of how deep the divisions may be.’

‘The party needs rebuilding. It needs a clear philosophy with policies that voters can see are capable of solving the country’s problems. And it needs a leader, and a leadership team, who can credibly represent conservatism and properly articulate it. We are a long way from that at the moment. But the Conservative Party is the great survivor.’

‘In theory, America’s policy of reshaping the world in its own image was supposed to safeguard human rights, promote peace, and make the world safe for democracy, as President Woodrow Wilson said in 1917. Instead, the U.S. became a highly militarized police state fighting wars that undermined peace, harmed human rights, and threatened liberal values at home, which reveals the U.S. government had other (malignant) intentions.’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has carried out a government reshuffle unprecedented since the outbreak of the war, with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba being the most notable victim. Ukraine’s situation on the battlefield is becoming increasingly difficult, and many believe the Kursk incursion was a significant mistake, ultimately falling on Zelenskyy’s shoulders. Thus the changes in his government may be part of the Ukrainian president’s efforts to sideline political opponents and silence dissenting voices.

‘For peace, a ceasefire is needed first. Only then can a peace plan be developed to end the conflict. Anyone who does not accept this is not familiar with the science of peacemaking,’ Balázs Orbán wrote in his analysis for Mandiner.

Over the weekend, the Israeli Defense Forces found the bodies of six Israeli hostages killed by the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah. In their initial reports major international media outlets were reluctant to spell out Hamas’s responsibility in their headlines, unsurprisingly for those who have been following the conflict and the media coverage attentively from the beginning of the war. This most recent example highlights the mainstream media’s growing tendency to deny or distort reality when it suits them.

‘Most wishing to migrate to the U.S. are seeking a better life, contrary to the regional violence, corruption, and economic devastation in their home countries. If U.S. and Central American governments are able to institutionalize a ‘Marshall Plan’ as Washington had done for Europe after World War II, then perhaps a workable solution is possible. However, the U.S. needs to take the lead in this, though it would be unable to do so long as members of both Democratic and Republican Parties continue to childishly bicker with one another.’

There are a number of conventional weapons whose appearance in US adversaries’ hands can cause serious damage to American interests all around the world. It is not difficult to imagine the threat of hypersonic anti-ship weapons, barely interceptable by contemporary air defence weaponry, on commercial ships, not only on the Red Sea. Arming let’s say Mexican drug cartels with modern anti-tank equipment could also seriously hamper US efforts to block the flow of drugs into the country.

‘The influence of Mao’s Cultural Revolution can indeed be seen as haunting Western universities today. In some respects, Western universities are now experiencing what Eastern European institutions endured under communism.’

‘It seems to me that Orbán sees his people as having a greater chance of surviving the disintegration of the West by forming ties to China. He might be proven wrong by history. But make no mistake: the dilemma facing Viktor Orbán is a lot like that facing Grand Prince Géza: How to strengthen the position of the small Hungarian nation amid the struggle of powerful states and empires? Géza’s geopolitical decision to baptism his son as a Latin Christian set the course of Hungarian history for a millennium. The stakes may well be as high for Orbán today.’

‘The Democrats, who often accuse Trump of populism, demagoguery, and fascism, are increasingly resorting to demagogic, populist, and fascist tactics themselves by instilling fear and turning Trump into a bogeyman, repeating the tired old tropes about him incessantly (not to mention using other means such as deploying law enforcement and the judiciary for partisan purposes against their political opponent). As posted on Facebook by the GOP, on the night of 19 August alone, the word “Trump” was mentioned 147 times at the DNC meanwhile “inflation” three times, “crime” six times, and “border” only eight times.’

‘Stricter AI regulation is needed precisely because of the military use of the technology. Those opposing the legal regulation of artificial intelligence within the European Union have voiced reasonable arguments, such as the fact that overly strict regulations might harm trade within the European Union and can cause economic backlash. But restrictions connected to LAWS do not have such impacts, and their only purpose is to protect civilians and prevent the detrimental possible effects of unregulated attacks.’

‘Hungarians who are looking for a way through this civilizational crisis should turn for wisdom and inspiration to a medieval poet who also lived through a period of tumultuous change, and who found a way out of the ‘dark wood’ of confusion by rediscovering faith in God, and in the things of eternity. Dante was not a Magyar, but like Magyars, he was European—one of the greatest Europeans who ever lived. He speaks to us today, across a sea of time, soaring above the heads of the bustling crowd of aggressive dwarves, and what his booming voice says is: Return.’

‘Today jihadists camouflage themselves as moderate and assimilated Muslims. In their Janus-face approach, they publicly advocate free enterprise and freedom of speech and of religion, while simultaneously being involved in sharia-based subversion, encouraging hatred, segregation, and violence. Just like Jefferson who confronted the conquering nature of Islam, Western leaders must do the same before the situation truly gets out of hand, as it appears to have happened in the UK.’

‘The essence of the grand strategy for Hungary—and now I will use intellectual language—is connectivity. This means that we will not allow ourselves to be locked into only one of either of the two emerging hemispheres in the world economy. The world economy will not be exclusively Western or Eastern. We have to be in both, in the Western and in the Eastern. This will come with consequences. The first. We will not get involved in the war against the East. We will not join in the formation of a technological bloc opposing the East, and we will not join in the formation of a trade bloc opposing the East.’

‘At times the only way to make the world safe for democracy, as Wilson envisioned, is to assume an amoral position, which may require a courtship of impure partners, even at the risk of tolerating their immoral policies. Yet notwithstanding the apparent Wilsonian recession in the U.S.-led West, and for that matter, the rest of the world, President Wilson’s vision is so heavily rooted in American political culture that its values shall continue to have a global appeal.’

For all the legitimate concerns about a second Trump presidency, Mr. Biden’s feeble governance—or whoever was running the show behind the scenes—and the falsehoods fed to the American public by the Democrats as to his mental and physical incapacities have achieved exactly what President Biden accused Mr. Trump of: weakening democracy.

During the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics drag performers appeared to form a composition similar to the painting The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci. The organizers have since claimed the resemblance was an oversight, and not intentional mockery. Meanwhile, just a few days later, Brazilian surfer Joao Chianca was threatened with disqualification if he did not remove an image of Jesus from his board.

‘In today’s culture, one has to explain how the modern existential paradigm does not hold the truth to sustain a prosperous life or society. With radical and individualistic generations being raised, nothing is more effective than to point out how existential nihilism does not bring happiness, meaning or prosperity. Cheap surface moralism should therefore be replaced by a transcendental framework of meaning and purpose.’

Biden’s abrupt exit from the presidential race and anointment of Vice President Kamala Harris as his would-be successor has certainly left world leaders in disarray—not that they were not expecting it, given the obvious lack of both physical stamina and mental acuity of the US president. Regardless, as they continue to grapple with the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, an escalation in the Middle East, and a more emphatic China, world leaders are contemplating if there will be a second Trump’s ‘America First’ administration or a continuity of Biden’s ‘America is Back’ through Kamala Harris.

For the fourth consecutive year, the European Commission has published its annual report on the rule of law, which comes with few surprises. In addition to Hungary, Brussels is now concerned about the rule of law in Slovakia and Italy, which is unsurprising given that both Member States have governments prioritizing national interests. Poland, on the other hand, has fallen off the EU’s ‘bad guy’ list since Brussels’ favourite, Donald Tusk, came to power. This year’s report leads to a single conclusion: the Commission views the rule of law as a tool for political and financial blackmail.

After a long time, Europe has the opportunity to take its future into its own hands, restore its long-lost prestige, and promote peace in Ukraine. Instead, Brussels has initiated a childish vendetta against Hungary over Viktor Orbán’s peace mission. Missing such opportunities out of hubris and pettiness demonstrates the utter incompetence of the EU leadership.

Ursula Von der Leyen has been re-elected as President of the European Commission by 401 MEPs who voted in favour. The conservative groups, that is, the ECR, Patriots for Europe, and Europe of Sovereign Nations voted against, as Von der Leyen and the EPP do not stand for conservative values and ideals any more.

‘An important element of Viktor Orbán’s governance is that he knows Hungarian history and has learned from its mistakes. He does not want to repeat the sins committed by the historic Hungarian state during the 20th century. Hungary’s vision has thus not been blinded by the anti-Zionism of woke ideology, and it is able to recognize that Israel is the bastion of democracy and human rights in the Middle East, while successfully holding on to its religious and national traditions.’