GOP to have Notorious White Nationalist Viktor Orban Speak at CPAC Despite Racial Purity Comments

Republicans will have Hungary's white nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban speak at their Conservative Political Action Committee [CPAC] conference in Texas next week despite recent comments reminiscent of Nazi propaganda from the 1930s.

Bloomberg: "A gathering of US conservatives in Texas next week will still include Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as a speaker despite his recent comments which prompted a long-time ally to resign from his government and compare his comments to Nazism.”

Orban's comments went too far for one of his closest advisors.

Political Wire, Politico: "A top adviser to Hungarian primary minister Viktor Orbán resigned after his “mixed race” remarks."

"Zsuzsa Hegedüs said in her resignation letter that they were “worthy of Goebbels” and a “pure Nazi text.”

"She added: “That you are able to deliver an openly racist speech would not occur to me even in a nightmare.”

The backlash resulted from a speech in Romania in which Orban warned of the evils of race mixing. “We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race,” he claimed, “and we do not want to become a mixed race.” Countries in which Europeans and non-Europeans live together are "no longer nations", he concluded.

It's certainly not the first time that Orban has made stupid, racist comments, and he's an infamous anti-Semite, authoritarian, and homophobe, but his recent comments come as he's about to speak at the annual CPAC conference in Texas, joining former President Donald Trump, Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Steve Bannon, TX Sen. Ted Cruz, and many others of the far right. Orban's invitation to speak at CPAC, despite his recent comments, feels like a clarifying moment in the transition of the Republican Party. It feels like they are ready to fully embrace Orban's authoritarian, white nationalist agenda.

Washington Post, Dana Milbank: "Republicans have hailed Orban as “Trump before Trump” (Bannon), whose government is doing “so many positive things” (Sen. Ron Johnson). Among the things it has been doing: seizing control of the judiciary and media, banning the depiction of homosexuality, demonizing Jewish billionaire George Soros, expelling asylum seekers and erecting a wire fence on the border, forcing out the country’s top university, and halving the size of parliament and redrawing districts to keep itself in power."

One might hope that Republicans have overplayed their hand a bit and that Americans will be repulsed by Orban's bigotry and Fascist-lite authoritarianism. At the very least voters will get a preview of what a second term for Donald Trump might look like.

#politics #news

By: Don Lam & Curated Content