Legal experts lay out the parallels between 'mercurial authoritarian' DeSantis and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán

20 July 2023

When far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was elected to a fourth consecutive term in April 2022, his victory was applauded not only by Hungary's far right, but also, by MAGA Republicans in the United States. Orbán has no shortage of admirers in the MAGA movement, including former President Donald Trump, ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson and organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Orbán, in fact, was a guest of honor at a CPAC 2022 event, where his anti-gay, hyper-nationalist message resonated with MAGA attendees.

In a disturbing article published by the Daily Beast on July 20, legal experts Norm Eisen and Andrew Warren lay out some of the ways in which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mirrors Orbán. Eisen was an ambassador to the Czech Republic under President Barack Obama, while Warren is the democratically elected Hillsborough County, Florida prosecutor who has had a bitter and ugly rivalry with DeSantis.

According to Eisen and Warren, DeSantis has been taking "significant steps towards transforming Florida into an autocracy similar to Viktor Orbán's Hungary."

"The scenes from Florida are by now familiar — a substitute teacher fired for posting a video of empty bookshelves in a public school library; the parents of an LGBTQ+ child wrestling with whether to leave their state because of the government’s hostility; a duly, twice-elected prosecutor suspended illegally and escorted out of the office by an armed sheriff's deputy," Eisen and Warren lament. "But the similarities between the Florida that DeSantis has helped create and Orbán’s Hungary deserve more attention here in America."

The attorneys continue, "Like DeSantis, Orbán has used the power of the state to target the LGBTQ+ community while trumpeting traditional values to build his base. The two men have also both demonized migration and migrants. DeSantis has taken it so far that there are criminal investigations in Texas — and possibly in California — of his potential involvement in schemes to move undocumented migrants around the U.S., allegedly tricking them. And then there is Orbán and DeSantis' shared hostility to the rule of law."

Technically, Orbán is not a dictator in the way that Italy's Benito Mussolini was a dictator. He does not enjoy dictator-for-life status like Gen. Francisco Franco in Spain or Gen. August Pinochet in Chile. Rather, Orbán has — like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — weakened his opposition by seriously undermining checks and balances in his country and making it more and more difficult to rein him in.

Eisen and Warren note that foes of DeSantis and Orbán have found out what's it like to be "on the wrong side of" a "mercurial authoritarian." Warren himself, in fact, has been a DeSantis target.

"Like Orbán, an increasingly dominant faction within the party has come to view liberal democracy not as the beating heart of our country, but as a liability," Eisen and Warren warn. "They see the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and checks and balances as threats to our country."

Find the Daily Beast's full article at this link (subscription required).

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