The US’ most prominent conservative gathering, founded on ideals of personal liberty and limited government, convenes in Budapest next month to celebrate a European leader accused of undermining democracy and individual rights.
The meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Hungary, scheduled for May 18 to May 20, is seen by some Republicans as a test of how closely American conservatives are willing align themselves with a global movement of far-right, Russia-friendly strongmen embraced by former US president Donald Trump.
The event’s keynote speaker is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a longtime supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The EU has accused Orban, who won re-election by a large margin on Sunday last week, of curbing media and judicial independence, enriching associates with public funds and recasting election laws to entrench his power.
Illustration: Louise Ting
Hungary joined in the EU sanctions imposed on Moscow in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, Orban has stopped short of criticizing Putin directly, barred weapons shipments through Hungary to neighboring Ukraine and opposed proposals for EU sanctions on Russian natural gas.
The Hungary meeting reflects a years-long push by CPAC’s organizers, the American Conservative Union (ACU), to promote Trump’s divisive brand of nationalist populism to foreign audiences. Last fall, a similar CPAC-branded meeting was held in Brazil, spotlighting Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right leader and Putin admirer.
An Orban spokesperson called the EU’s criticism of him “politically, ideologically based” and part of a long-running “provocation campaign and witch hunt” by liberal elites.
The Hungary gathering spotlights an emerging split among Republicans. While some have grown more tolerant of Putin and other foreign leaders with authoritarian tendencies, others are alarmed at the association.
Al Cardenas, who served as ACU chairman from 2011 to 2014, called CPAC’s embrace of Orban troubling, noting the Hungarian leader’s close ties to Putin, “the most dangerous adversary of the free world.”
“Orban is no friend of democratic nations, and any gestures or cooperation with USA nonprofits sends the wrong signal to the rest of the world, especially in the midst of the Russia-Ukraine war,” said Cardenas, who was also once chair of Florida’s Republican Party.
On one side of the Republican split are traditional anti-authoritarian conservatives who value personal freedoms, limited government and free markets, said former ACU executive director Gregg Keller, who heads the political consulting firm Atlas Strategy Group.
Keller described this typically older group as “Reagan internationalist-type folks.”
Their ideology increasingly clashes with Trump’s strongest supporters, who Keller described as “more populist, younger, isolationist folks,” who view Putin’s attack on Ukraine as “none of our concern,” adding that many Trump backers admire Orban for using his political dominance to push a conservative cultural agenda, from immigration crackdowns to restrictions on LGBTQ rights.
“You’re seeing those two opposing views very much go head-to-head,” Keller said in reference to CPAC Hungary.
The ACU, which has condemned the invasion of Ukraine, has received requests to host similar CPAC gatherings in dozens of other countries where like-minded groups have offered to cosponsor events, ACU executive director Daniel Schneider said, adding that the organization has heard from potential sponsors in Slovakia, Kenya, Mongolia, Guatemala and other locales.
The foreign cohosts of CPAC events cover the cost of the offshore meetings, Schneider said.
The Budapest conference is cohosted by a Hungarian think tank that receives funding from Orban’s government. The Brazil meeting was cohosted by a Brazilian think tank owned by Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president’s son and a far-right Brazilian lawmaker.
CPAC Hungary marks its first meeting in Europe and its fifth foreign gathering since the ACU first took the conference abroad to Japan in 2017.
Some US conservatives are concerned about CPAC’s reliance on foreign sponsors and the exposure those groups get to influential conservative officials and leaders.
In February, a Republican strategist filed an anonymous complaint to the US Department of Justice, alleging that the ACU and its leaders have contravened the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by failing to report money they accept from foreign organizations while promoting those groups’ interests to US audiences. The written complaint serves as a formal request for a federal investigation.
The complaint charges that foreign hosts of at least three overseas CPAC meetings, including CPAC Hungary, provided more than US$150,000 in sponsorships for CPAC’s marquee US meeting in February in Orlando, Florida. The complainant, a longtime CPAC attendee, expressed disappointment in an interview with Reuters over “how ACU has monetized CPAC to foreign actors” and given them a platform in the US.
Schneider called the allegations “ludicrous.” CPAC’s international outreach, he said, aims to forge bonds with fellow conservatives around its “freedom and liberty” philosophy and has nothing to do with promoting foreign interests.
TRUMP’S SHADOW
Launched in 1974, the annual CPAC conference has grown from a meeting of conservative thinkers and politicians to a jamboree of right-wing celebrities and activists. With Trump’s rise to power, the conferences morphed from a bastion of traditional conservatism into a promotional vehicle for the populist president.
The ACU has continued touting Trumpism since he lost the 2020 election and launched his campaign to overturn the results based on false voting-fraud claims.
“We’re almost seeing a political realignment in real time” on the American right, said Erick Erickson, a prominent conservative commentator, “and so much of it is in Donald Trump’s shadow.”
While old-school conservatives are deeply skeptical of government power, Erickson said, Trump has inspired national populists “who want a strong central government that can impose their will on the country.”
Many of them believe traditional conservatism has failed to stop the advancement of left-wing culture, Erickson said, and “they want to move on to something new.”
Orban was the first European leader to endorse Trump’s 2016 presidential bid. He is among an array of hardline leaders, including Putin, whom Trump has publicly admired. Trump endorsed Orban in the April 3 Hungarian election, which Orban won with 53 percent of the vote against a six-party coalition.
The Ukraine war initially was seen to have harmed Orban’s campaign because of his cozy relationship with Putin. Orban prevailed after arguing that the opposition’s promises to mend ties with the EU could lead Hungary into war with Russia.
Orban’s politics and policies appear to clash with CPAC’s principles, detailed in a founding charter that celebrates the “inherent rights of the individual through strictly limiting the power of government.”
The Hungarian leader has pushed to replace independent news outlets with state-aligned media and installed loyalists to oversee institutions such as the judiciary and chief prosecutor’s office.
Orban’s opponents depict him as an authoritarian who exploits power to weaken democracy and reward cronies, accusations Orban denies. The EU froze 7.2 billion euros (US$7.83 billion) in subsidies to Hungary and has threatened to halt billions more unless it institutes reforms such as strengthening judicial independence.
Orban’s spokesperson called the withholding of EU funds “outrageous and unjustifiable,” particularly as Hungary confronts the effects of a war just over its border.
Many US conservatives have come to envy Orban’s use of government power to impose a conservative cultural agenda, said Kim Lane Scheppele, a Princeton University professor of sociology and international affairs who studies Hungarian politics.
“Hungary has become, for the Trumpist Republicans, what Sweden used to be for the social democrats. It’s proof of concept,” Scheppele said.
Orban touts what he calls “illiberal democracy” and depicts himself as a Christian defender of European heritage. He uses anti-immigration policies to repel Muslim migrants and rejects liberal European positions on social issues, such as adoption by gay couples.
American Conservative columnist Rod Dreher sees Orban’s Hungary as a model for post-Trump conservatism. Dreher, whose latest book, Live Not by Lies, was translated into Hungarian, took a selfie with Orban on a visit to Budapest and posted it on social media with the message: “Hey haters!”
“Orban, unlike so many of our own conservative politicians, understands that we are in a battle to defend our civilization, and he fights like it,” Dreher said, adding that CPAC Hungary would show American conservatives “what nationalist, populist conservative governance can be.”
ORBAN FUNDING
Miklos Szantho is director of the Center for Fundamental Rights, the Orban-backed think tank hosting the conference. In an interview with Reuters, Szantho spoke of the shared interests of conservatives internationally: “Our Judeo-Christian heritage, national identity, state sovereignty, the family, the created nature of man and woman.”
The Budapest-based center said it first approached the ACU about three years ago to discuss hosting CPAC. The center, which describes itself as a research institute, focuses largely on promoting Orban’s policies. Its Web site decries “overgrown human rights-fundamentalism and political correctness,” and Szantho appears regularly on Hungarian TV as a pro-Orban pundit.
The center received large donations from Orban’s government, public records showed.
It is run by a company called Jogallam es Igazsag Nonprofit Kft, owned by Szantho, who set it up in 2013 with the help of funding from a foundation linked to Orban’s ruling party, Fidesz. In 2020, the prime minister’s office gave the company 2.3 billion forints (US$6.62 million), the office’s annual report showed. The same year, the company received 720 million forints from a foundation also funded by Orban’s government, documents showed.
Some US conservatives are wary of CPAC’s association with foreign groups underwriting its conferences.
“There are downsides to going international,” former ACU chair David Keene said.
Citing controversies surrounding Orban’s policies and his ties to Putin, Keene said such partnerships risk aligning CPAC with groups and agendas that run counter to its principles.
Schneider said that foreign cohosts are assessed for “philosophical alignment.”
Szantho said CPAC Hungary is likely to attract “preeminent conservative politicians and intellectuals” worldwide.
The center has announced only a few speakers, including Orban, Eduardo Bolsonaro — the Brazilian president’s son — and Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party. Orban remains the biggest draw.
“In my eyes, if a prime minister attends a conference, that shows [the] conference is important,” Szantho said.
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