Why Viktor Orbán’s Racism Matters in the U.S.
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
What do you want to know about my views or how I’d answer particular challenges to them? I’ll be on vacation next week, so instead of a normal “question of the week,” I’d be grateful if you took this opportunity to “ask me anything” about any subject of public interest—including but not limited to any subject that I’ve ever written about here at The Atlantic—so that I can accumulate some questions that I will answer in future newsletters.
Send responses to conor@theatlantic.com.
Conversations of Note
Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, is scheduled to address the Conservative Political Action Committee conference in Texas this week. If you’ve missed the fallout so far, brace yourself for the latest round of controversy to surround the nationalist leader, who is celebrated as a prescient statesman on parts of the American right––here’s Rod Dreher calling him a Margaret Thatcher to a future Ronald Reagan––even as critics lambast him as a xenophobic authoritarian or even a Nazi-like fascist.
How has the leader of a small Central European country emerged as a polarizing figure in the United States? If you need a bit of background, the case against Orbán and Orbánism has been made ably in by , , and , who (contra Dreher) sees Orbán as “the man whose career probably best illustrates the distance in the Spring 2019 issue of the .
