«In the end, if a party cannot deliver economically, that's the main thing people care about. Plus, lots of Hungarians, even Orbán supporters, complain about Fidesz corruption. There must be something to it». The full interview in English
Rod Dreher is a well-known American conservative author living in Budapest. This conversation took place on 9 April via email after the interviewee had to cancel a face-to-face meeting scheduled for that same day. The interview was originally published in Italian as an article, but the full original transcript is provided here for those who wish to read the conversation in English.
What were the reasons why you decided to move to Budapest? Why do you think a wave of global figures did? Did Viktor Orbán and his circle personally invite or suggest you to move to Budapest? What was your first contact with Orbán and/or his circle?
I moved here in 2022 permanently following a divorce. My older son came with me. I was looking for a change. Besides, I had come to be interested in the post-communist countries of Europe, which I had visited in 2019 while researching my book "Live Not By Lies." And, I had taken a four-month fellowship at the Danube Institute in Budapest in 2021, followed by a second one in the spring of 2022. I liked Budapest life, and thought it would be an interesting place to learn about politics in Europe. I was especially interested in what lessons Orbán 's approach to government could teach American conservatives.
When I first met in 2018, I was part of a delegation of speakers who had come to Budapest for a conference on religious freedom. At the end, we were surprised when the organizer told us that the prime minister wanted to meet us. We got on a bus and went to the Karmelita, Viktor Orbán 's office. I thought it would be the usual meet-and-greet thing -- you know, where we shake hands with the politician, pose for a photo, and go on our way. Instead, Orbán sat with us all -- maybe 15 people, all of us conservatives -- in a room, and answered our questions for about an hour, in good English. He did not have a press aide. I had never seen any politician speak so confidently and intelligently, and I certainly did not expect that from Viktor Orbán , whose reputation in the Western media was quite poor. At the end of our talk, Orbán said that he hoped all of us would consider Budapest as our intellectual home. It almost seemed like a joke. Really? This city in Central Europe, as an intellectual home for Western conservatives?
When I returned in 2021 for the fellowship, I saw how serious the Hungarians were in reaching out to public intellectuals in the West. After three weeks here, I texted Tucker Carlson, who at the time had the top-rated news commentary show on American TV. He and I were friends then (we no longer are), and I told him that there's something really interesting happening in Budapest. I told him that our media has only bad things to say about Hungary, but that I'm seeing something very different here. I encouraged him to come visit. At the end of the summer, in August, Carlson spent one week in Budapest, broadcasting his show. That was a real turning point for Hungary. Now, Trump-oriented conservatives had Budapest on their radar. The things Tucker broadcast, and the things I wrote for The American Conservative magazine, for which I was a popular blogger at the time, really made a lot of people interested.
I have only met Orbán personally four or five times. I am not close to him or his circles, but I have friendly relations with him. I have been around him twice, accompanied by Western European, British, and American journalists who had never before seen him. It was fun to see how they reacted to him. Once, he appeared to the group wearing jeans, a blue blazer, and a shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He spoke without notes, in a direct and friendly way, and gave intellectually substantive answers. After that meeting, all the journalists talked about how shocking it was. Like me in 2018, they did not expect Orbán to be that way, and also like me in 2018, they had never experienced a senior politician who was able to discourse at length about serious topics, without giving the typical bland answers of a politician.
Is Hungary still a model the way it was years ago?
Mostly yes. Hungary continues to be a model for how to handle mass migration. We see the rest of Europe slowly beginning to catch up to Hungary, with parties of the nationalist Right and others realizing that Orbán was right all along about the issue. I also think Orbán offers a good model to other European countries in defending their sovereignty against overreach from Brussels. But Hungary's excellent, pro-family policies have unfortunately not had a lot of success raising the birth rate. Plus, Hungary has never recovered economically from Covid. The EU has withheld funds meant for Hungary's recovery. Inflation has been high, and the economy has been stagnant. I still believe that Orbán 's aggressive approach to politics, in the sense that he understands that the left acts politically through supposedly neutral institutions, like universities, is a good model for right-wing parties to keep in mind. But in the end, if a party cannot deliver economically, that's the main thing people care about.
Plus, lots of Hungarians, even Orbán supporters, complain about Fidesz corruption. I don't speak Hungarian, so I don't know how accurate these claims always are, but there must be something to it. My Orbán-supporting friends say that when the economy is growing, as it was for most of Orbán 's time in office, it is easy to overlook corruption. But in tough economic times, this is harder to tolerate. If Fidesz loses this election, I think the main reason will be that Orbán did not deal with corruption. It also hurts Orbán that for the first time, he is facing not a challenger from the Left, but one from the Right. Hungarians are generally conservative, and older ones have vivid memories of communist times. The longtime godfather of the left-wing parties, Ferenc Gyurcsany, was a corrupt prime minister, and was also a Communist Party apparatchik who rehabilitated himself as a democratic socialist. Older voters remember all of that, and hated him for it. Plus, Hungarians are extremely defensive about their sovereignty. They saw George Soros as leading the attack on their sovereignty. Well, Soros has retired from public life, so he is not there as an Orbán foil in this election cycle. It is interesting that on the issues that Orbán contrasted himself to the left in past elections -- migration, sovereignty vs Brussels, and keeping Hungary out of the Russia-Ukraine war -- his opponent Peter Magyar has not publicly taken the other side. This leads many voters to think that Magyar will be Orbán without the corruption. I doubt this will be the case if Magyar becomes prime minister, however.
In case Viktor Orbán doesn't win elections, do you plan to remain in Budapest or maybe change? Would a win from Tisza - which has Fidesz roots and is right-wing anyway - necessarily put at risk the infrastructure of think tanks and political/cultural exchanges? Magyar repeatedly said he considers relations with US a priority and for what I know, figures such as Anita Orbán had contacts with US conservative think tanks, didn't she?
I have been thinking about moving to Vienna after the election, no matter who wins, to be closer to my son, who lives there now. If Magyar wins, then yes, it is possible that the network of think tanks connected to the Orbán government will be in trouble. If that happens, then I for sure will move, because I probably won't have a job. But I might move even if Orbán wins, not out of unhappiness in Budapest, but only to be closer to my son, who is finishing graduate school in Vienna, and plans to work there.
On the other hand, Trump will still be the US president for two more years, and Magyar might decide that it is in Hungary's interest to maintain these contacts built by Fidesz and its various think tanks. It's hard to predict what will happen. If Magyar wins, he will have a mandate to clean up perceived Fidesz corruption, but I think there will be much bigger targets for him to go after than think tanks and other structures that could actually help the country, especially in its relations to the US, and to right-wing parties across Europe. (I don't know who Anita Orbán is -- foreign journalists always assume that I know a lot more about the Fidesz structure than I do. I work from home, and have not made a point of getting involved in politics here).
Do you think that Orbán and Meloni play different tactics with a common strategy, or is there a substantial disalignment? Do you like Meloni?
I like Meloni -- she's very tough, which I find appealing! -- but I don't know enough about how she governs to make an informed comparison. She does get along better with the EU than Orbán does, no question.
Best place, best book, best moment you had in Budapest.
I am 59 years old, and have been a Europhile all my life. I even published a book in 2015 called "How Dante Can Save Your Life". I would not have chosen divorce -- my ex-wife is the one who filed for divorce -- but one good thing that came from it is that I had the chance to move to Europe and start life over. Budapest has been a great place for that. The things I love about life here are the things I love about Europe in general: the beautiful cities, the slower pace, the ability to live without a car, the lively street life. My favorite thing about this city is sitting under the trees at my neighborhood wine bar in the spring and summer, drinking fröccs (the Magyar name for wine spritzers), reading books, and talking with friends. Europeans really know how to relax and enjoy life, and Hungarians are no different. Plus, aside from my Christian faith -- I am a convert of 20 years to Eastern Orthodoxy -- the thing I care about most of all is saving Western civilization, and that means reviving Christianity. I became a Christian as an adult because I visited the Chartres cathedral when I was 17 years old. Growing up in small town America in the late 20th century did not prepare me for something like that. Europe has so many incredible treasures -- cathedrals, monasteries, castles, old city centers, and so forth. It is very dear to me, and now that I have lived here for four years, I feel that I have become more European. So, even though I supported Donald Trump in his 2024 campaign, and even though I strongly supported J.D. Vance's message in his 2025 Munich speech, I have been disappointed and even angry at the way the Trump administration has treated Europe. We are part of the same civilization. Europe is our cultural and spiritual home, even though many Americans don't understand this. I plan to write a book about this in the near future.
Another thing I love to do is to take long walks along the Danube, from my neighborhood in Pest, not far from the big market hall, all the way up to Margaret Island, and back. I am always aware of what a privilege it is to live near the banks of this great river. As sad as I am over the divorce, God has given me a great blessing by these years in Budapest, and in Europe. I am grateful. And if one day my life here takes me to Italy to live for a time, well, the blessing will even be greater! The land of Dante, the monks of Norcia, and my hero, Marco Sermarini, the leader of the Tipi Loschi Catholic family community on the Adriatic, seems close to heaven.
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