"Joseph Sternberg misses the point of why American conservatives like me think Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has something to teach our right-of-center politicians ("Hungary Is No Model for Conservatives," Political Economics, April 8). Mr. Sternberg writes as if Mr. Orban's fights with the European Union over funding are relevant to the case we make. He's wrong. We can leave aside the question of whether the EU bureaucracy should be telling member states how to educate their children about sex, because it says nothing about the argument for an American Orban.
Hungary is a vastly different country than the U.S., so transplanting its system to America is neither possible nor desirable. What's worth copying from Mr. Orban is a style of populist, national-conservative leadership based on several realities that typically elude U.S. conservatives.
Mr. Orban grasps that the West is in the grips of an internal civilizational struggle -- and that the forces of tradition are losing badly. He understands that the left controls all the cultural institutions and the bureaucracies, and recognizes that conservatives who are unwilling to play hardball, and to create an effective counterelite, are going to keep losing. He also gets that Anglo-American conservatism -- with its fear of crossing Big Business and its hollow hatred of Big Government -- is outdated, and fails to defend the social institution most in need of conserving: the family.
Mr. Orban knows that a nation unwilling to defend its borders is not a nation at all.
And unlike Donald Trump, to whom he is often compared, Mr. Orban cares more about effective governing than "owning the libs."
Tomorrow's conservative leaders are beating a path to Budapest today. They know what's what, even if Mr. Sternberg doesn't.
Rod Dreher
Senior editor, American Conservative
Budapest" [1]
1. How to Think About Hungary's Viktor Orban
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 13 Apr 2022: A.14.
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