Hungary turned to authoritarian nationalism. So Tucker Carlson went to Hungary.

In February 2018, for example, Tucker Carlson praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for defying the European Union on the issue of immigration.

“At least one politician in Europe is fearlessly raising an alarm about the kind of society European elites want to create, one that is rejected unanimously almost by European citizens,” Carlson said. “In a speech yesterday kicking off his party’s bid for reelection, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned that politicians in Brussels, Berlin and Paris are going to destroy Western civilization with their enthusiasm for mass migration left unchecked.”

“He said Europe could end up with a Muslim majority while the continent’s Christian culture would be blotted out,” Carlson continued. “ … Naturally, though, [E.U.] leaders denounced Orban as authoritarian — hilarious, considering the source. Their motto effectively is: Do as we tell you or you hate democracy. How’s that for Orwellian?”

Actually, the reason that E.U. leaders have criticized Orban as authoritarian is that he has embarked on an unabashed and explicit effort to shift Hungary away from the traditions of liberal democracy, in which power is assigned through free and fair elections. Orban is criticized as authoritarian because he has embraced autocracy.

In August 2019, the Economist explored how Orban’s Fidesz party has centralized power at the expense of democratic systems. That has included aligning the three branches of power in the country — executive, legislative and judicial — under Fidesz’s control.

“Posters throughout Hungary read, ‘If you come to Hungary, you must respect Hungarian culture!’ All the posters were in Hungarian,” the New Yorker reported in January 2019. “That summer, Orban’s government began to construct a fence along Hungary’s borders with Serbia and Croatia, essentially halting immigration to the country.”

An anti-corruption activist in the country who spoke with Ben Rhodes for the Atlantic framed this as being more about power consolidation than concern about immigration.

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