Hungary’s democratic institutions are under attack from its own Prime Minister Viktor Orban, but you wouldn’t know it from President Donald Trump treatment of the authoritarian leader on Monday in the Oval Office.
As the Washington Post explained, the previous two presidents had refused to meet with Orban as “he shut down Hungary’s opposition media, eliminated independent courts, drove a prestigious U.S. university out of Budapest and spewed hateful rhetoric toward Muslims and, in more subtle terms, Jews.” And while much of Europe is shunning him over his explicitly illiberal turn, promoting the country as a white Christian nation, Trump saw fit to praise Orban from the White House.
“You’re respected all over Europe,” he said. “Probably like me a little bit controversial, but that’s okay. That’s okay. You’ve done a good job and you’ve kept your country safe.”
View the complete May 13 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.