Bringing CPAC to Hungary betrays the origins of the conservative movement

On Thursday, the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) will meet in Hungary to discuss their ongoing “fight for conservatism in America and abroad.” Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, is featured as a keynote speaker.

Apart from his Christian nationalism, antisemitism and homophobia, a major characteristic U.S. conservatives find endearing in Orban is his success in silencing the academic left — something the American right has long wanted to do.

But there’s a great historical irony about conservatives’ embrace of Orban. The Hungarian Revolution — in which academics and students led an anti-communist attempt to gain independence from the Soviet Union — was a catalyst for the rise of the American conservative movement in the 1950s.

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