Tucker Trundles to Tin-Pot Land

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The Authoritarian International took a brisk step forward this week, as Tucker Carlson ventured to Budapest to sing the praises of Victor Orban’s repressive regime to Fox News junkies. All this week, Carlson is broadcasting from Budapest, and will conclude his stay in Orbanland with a Saturday address to MCC Feszt, a mix of rock performances and “idea” discussions funded by the Hungarian government.

Orban isn’t the first rightwing thug ruler whom Carlson has visited. In March, Tucker ventured south to expose Fox viewers to another budding tin-pot potentate, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele. 

Building solidarity within the Tin-pot-ariat has long been the dream of Trump master strategist Steve Bannon, as the more that authoritarian regimes enact the same strategies, the more likely they are to hire the same strategists, which, in this case, means Bannon. Like Bannon, Carlson clearly hopes to build a global, white, Christian, authoritarian movement. In distant lands, to be sure, Carlson shows some flexibility on the white Christian stuff, as his Bukele promotion indicates. Sometimes, what really matters even to racists, if they have some sense of realpolitik, is anti-liberal authoritarianism, as the Nazis made clear when they formally allied themselves with Japan’s military rulers.

So, where to go next? Poland is an obvious choice, but why limit Carlson just to European thugocracies? How about the Burmese junta? How about Saudi Arabia’s MBS? After all, Orban merely harasses and eventually bans independent news media, while MBS actually kills journalists he doesn’t like.

Which brings us to what some might regard as an anomaly in Carlson’s Orban embrace. According to Reporters Without Borders, Orban “has steadily and effectively undermined media pluralism and independence since being returned to power in 2010.”

Apparently, this kind of record doesn’t dim Carlson’s support for Orban; he wouldn’t be bustling around Budapest if he didn’t think the Orban approach to press freedom —kill it—was both positive and worthy of emulation. But suppose the Biden administration took that approach to Fox News, or The New York Post, or, heaven forfend, the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal? Would Rupert be okay with that? Would Paul Gigot (who edits the Journal’s editorial pages)? Where’s the Journal editorial saying that Tucker’s Orbanlove is actually dangerous—if not to the world at large, at least to its Murdoch interests?

Curious minds want to know (if it’s still OK to have curious minds). 

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