Tea at Trianon: The Trump-Orbán Meeting

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, March 15, 2024

The Trump-Orbán Meeting

From The European Conservative:

Both Trump and Orbán have been outspoken conservative leaders on issues such as the threat of migration, islamic terrorism, or the woke culture embraced by liberals on both sides of the Atlantic, and have also diverged from mainstream thinking on conflicts such as the war in Ukraine. Orbán has praised Trump many times for being a peace-broker instead of an interventionist like many of his predecessors. The former president mediated bilateral agreements between Israel and two Arabic countries, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, bringing a higher degree of stability to the region. While almost all other EU nations are sending weapons to Ukraine in its defence against invading Russia, Orbán has refused to do so, saying the arming of Ukraine only increases the death toll. He has called for peace talks to begin as soon as possible, and said reelecting Trump would bring an end to the war. “The only chance of the world for a relatively fast peace deal is political change in the United States, and this is linked to who is the president,” he recently said.
This will be their second meeting since Trump left the White House in 2021. They previously met in August 2022 at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club when Orbán travelled to the United States to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas. Trump and Orbán have praised each other in recent years. In April 2023, when charges were filed in the first of Trump’s four criminal cases, Orbán posted a message of support for Trump urging him to “keep on fighting.” Trump in early 2022 said he was giving his “complete support and endorsement” to Orbán’s reelection campaign that year.

Both of them have contributed to a strengthening of ties between Republicans and conservative European parties. Hungarian conservatives have been regular visitors in the United States, have hosted their own regional version of CPAC in Hungary, and will do so again in April. Orbán has said the U.S. and European elections this year would be crucial as conservatives in Europe and the U.S. must fight together to “reconquer” institutions in Washington and Brussels from liberals who threaten Western civilisation. Hungary has been punished by EU institutions, its EU funds frozen for political reasons under the pretence of “rule-of-law violations” and “democratic backsliding.” American-Hungarian relations have also seriously deteriorated, with Joe Biden’s liberal Ambassador in Hungary, David Pressman, regularly criticising the Budapest Government.

While Trump has influenced the Republican Party, Orbán has had an effect on European politics, making the point that steering clear of mainstream liberal ideas and replacing it with a conservative, sovereignist approach can be a successful model, if it has the backing of the population. (Read more.)