The Most Dangerous Man in America

TV personality Tucker Carlson’s admiration for Hungary’s Viktor Orbán demonstrates why Carlson is the most dangerous man in America.

No, not that one, not the “former guy.” Donald Trump, the former president, has been superseded by Tucker Carlson — who may be smarter and a lot more disciplined — as the most dangerous man in America. Do not get me wrong. I still think the former president is a threat to democracy and constitutional government, but Carlson shows signs of trying to build a sustained nationalist, white supremacist movement in a more coherent way than Trump ever attempted. And, Carlson has a huge audience on Fox News, where he appears five nights a week in prime time.

You can always gain valuable insights into someone’s political leanings by paying attention to whom they pay attention. Last week, Carlson broadcast his most-watched cable news show from Budapest. The Fox News personality told his viewers to learn from Hungary “if you care about Western civilization, and democracy, and family — and the ferocious assault on all three of those things by leaders of our global institutions.” The political right — in America and around the world — often cites “globalism” or “globalization” as the root of all problems. The terms suggest a rigged economic and political system that exploits people for the benefit of shadowy forces in the news media and government. In Hungary, as elsewhere in Europe and, at times, in the United States, globalism feeds uglier forms of nationalism, White supremacy, and anti-Semitism. Hungary’s autocratic ruler, Viktor Orbán, often cites George Soros, a Holocaust survivor and noted philanthropist, as the face of globalism. 

Carlson uses his nightly show to air White grievance. He questions whether George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, refers to Black Lives Matter as “poison,” and promotes the claim — familiar to White nationalists — that “the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate [with] more obedient voters from the Third World.” Attacks on immigrants and immigration are a staple of Carlson’s repertoire and form the basis for his admiration of Hungary’s strongman. “Hungary’s leaders actually care about making sure their own people thrive,” Carlson said in 2019 in praise of Orbán’s fence-building attempts to keep Muslim immigrants from southeastern Europe and the Middle East out of Hungary. “Instead of promising the nation’s wealth to every illegal immigrant from the Third World, they’re using tax dollars to uplift their own people,” he added.

Carlson uses vile language familiar to racists and anti-Semites throughout history in his rants against immigrants. With Budapest as a backdrop, he praised Hungary’s crackdown on immigration while referring to immigrants to the United States as the cause of “the chaos and filth and crime growing all around us.” The historical parallels are obvious. Hitler often spoke and wrote of the “filthy Jew” and Nazi images of the “Eternal Jew,” replete with the Communist hammer and sickle yet holding gold coins in a stereotypic cartoon image of a Jew, undergirded anti-Semitic propaganda. 

Carlson’s praise of Hungary and Orbán omits some ugly facts. Carlson does not inform his viewers about Orbán’s autocratic rule and how he and the political movement he heads have undermined Hungary’s democratic institutions. Carlson and his cohorts on the right — many of whom also admire Orbán — do not dwell on the Hungarian autocrat’s success in curtailing democratic norms by stacking the nation’s judicial system and gerrymandering voting districts. Orbán has cracked down on the media, insuring that news outlets are loyal to him, while he presides over a corrupt economic system — based on graft and patronage — that has bound the few who control the economy to him while impoverishing the rest of Hungary’s citizens. Carlson skates over this unsavory part, yet Hungary’s ongoing slide toward despotic rule provides a road map for America’s right wing, which has succeeded in stacking the judiciary with conservatives and gerrymandering congressional districts, and is now in the process of restricting who can vote and whose votes count.

Carlson is not alone on the American right in his admiration for Orbán. The Hungarian ruler’s fans include publications like the National Review, The American Conservative, and the New York Post. Christopher Caldwell, a widely followed right-wing journalist, called Orbán a leader “blessed with almost every political gift — brave, shrewd with his enemies and trustworthy with his friends, detail-oriented, hilarious.” Patrick Deneen, a prominent conservative political theorist, called the Hungarian government a “model” for American conservatives to emulate. Rod Dreher, editor of The American Conservative, told Vox, “What I see in in Orbán is one of the few major politicians in the West who seems to understand the importance of Christianity, and the importance of culture, and who is willing to defend these things against a very rich and powerful international establishment.” Dreher also applauds Orbán for refusing “to allow all the Middle Eastern immigrants to settle in Hungary.”

Dreher encapsulates the two overlapping camps in American conservatism to whom Orbán appeals: Religious social conservatives and White supremacist nationalists. The former admire Orbán’s support for Hungarian churches, his retrograde backing for social policies encouraging women to stay home and have more Hungarian babies (shades of Hitler?), and his crackdown on the Hungarian LGBTQ community. Nationalists admire Orbán’s clampdown on immigration and his feuds with the European Union, which the right often cites as a tool of globalization. 

Carlson hails from the nationalist wing of conservatism, and nationalism is the basis of his admiration for Orbán. Promoting himself as the voice of White grievance on his popular cable news show, Carlson is poised to make a run for president in 2024. He has not yet indicated a wish to do so, but Republican chatter about his prospects has been considerable. Of course, every Republican’s presidential ambitions are on hold until Trump announces his intentions, but Carlson is the highest-profile proponent of “Trumpism” (after the former president, that is): A blend of anti-immigrant nationalism, White supremacist appeals, and America First isolationism. 

If Carlson were to run and win, he might prove to be even more dangerous than Trump in a second term. Given Carlson’s admiration for Hungary’s strongman and the means by which the despot has imposed his autocracy coupled with further appeals by Carlson to the uglier side of American White nationalism, a Carlson presidency might signal the end of American democracy. Orbán has provided the template Carlson appears more than ready to follow.

That makes Carlson the most dangerous man in America.

Posted August 10, 2021