Democrat calls leader of Hungary a "brutal dictator;" an American living there says...

Rod Dreher is a conservative.  By contrast, presidential historian Michael Beschloss is a Democrat and a left-liberal.  So when Trump invited the prime minister of Hungary, Victor Orban, to his home, the leftist Democrat screamed bloody murder:

“Trump has now had Viktor Orban, the brutal dictator of Hungary, as his house guest.  Take this seriously if you love democracy.” —Michael Beschloss

So Beschloss calls Orban a "brutal dictator," thus by association denouncing Trump as the same.  Interesting.  Dreher had a few things to say about life in Hungary under the man Beschloss called a "brutal dictator."  I've edited his piece below.

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Dear Professor Beschloss,

I write you as an American living in fear in the heart of this brutal dictatorship—Budapest, the capital of Hungary, which, as you so clearly said, suffers under the brutal rule of Viktor Orban.

I was encouraged by your denunciation of the Viktator, as we call him.  You Americans are lucky to live in a country in which no media ever say anything good about Hungary and its dictator.  That's good because without that critical guidance Americans might be tempted to believe lies--which as we both know are statements that contradict what American "elites" tell people to believe.

Americans who come to Hungary are puzzled that the brutal dictatorship they've been told rules here seems to be so well hidden!Hungarians seem to be able to say whatever they think, and the media regularly denounce the Viktator.  Such things seem inconsistent with a brutal dictatorship, eh?

Hungarians have the right to vote in free elections, and any fear--like the brutality--is apparently carefully hidden.

Fortunately you, Prof. Beschloss, know better. You understand that Hungarians actually live under a brutal, oppressive regime.  We need brave voices like yours exposing ruthless dictators.

You pointed out that “strongmen” like Orban rarely leave office.  And sure enough, Orban has been elected four times in a row, the last time—in 2022—with a majority so large it surprised even the leadership of his party. International election observers routinely verify that elections here appear honest--but of course a dictatorship would be expected to buy that endorsement, eh?

Fortunately experts like you know that when people vote for a candidate liberal elites don't like, voters have undoubtedly been either fooled or strong-armed into voting against their own interests.  There's simply no way locals could honestly vote for a candidate you and your peers have deemed a brutal dictator, so the vote must have been rigged.

And we agree that dictatorships routinely rig elections.

Part of Orban’s big win in 2022 was his opposition to Hungary entering NATO's proxy war against Russia. The anti-Orban opposition here promised to do as Washington and Brussels demanded, but sadly, too many ordinary Hungarians failed to support the honest, uncorrupt Ukrainian political order, as Orban's opponents demanded.

Sadly, we in Hungary must endure a media environment in which there is actual critical discussion and debate about such matters, confusing ordinary citizens by forcing them to decide who's telling the truth.  Your country has a better system, with elites preventing citizens from being confused by ensuring they only hear what the government has determined to be the truth.  "Eliminating disinformation," they call it.

Our dictatorship also suffers from a lack of the "dieversity" found in America and most EU nations.  Most government positions are filled by native-born Hungarians, so we're deprived of the innovative policies introduced by African and middle-eastern immigrants, like declaring that math, and being on time, are both racist and an obvious characteristic of "white supremacy."

Because of our brutal dictatorship, roads and airports and public squares are not blocked several times a week by colorful pro-Hamas demonstrators.  Indeed, Jews routinely walk the streets without fear of assault.  Your American system is clearly far better, but alas, our brutal dictator won't permit such colorful protests.

Clearly the brutal Viktatorship’s immigration policies are depriving Hungarians of the vibrant dieversity seen in other Western capitals. An English friend visiting New York last week sent me a photo of a large group of African men congregating outside the hotel where they're housed, and urinating on the sidewalk.  Hungarians are deprived of this vibrant smell--"the incense of true democracy," eh?  Hopefully when we at last break free of our brutal dictatorship we'll finally get that here in Budapest.

Similarly, the subway in Budapest is quite dull. Everyone is well behaved.  No one shoves anyone onto the tracks or shoots other riders.  That's probably due to the heavy police presence one expects in a dictatorship.  But we see almost no uniforms, so they must be all plainclothes agents.

Perhaps everyone is just so terrified of the brutal dictator that they're too scared to misbehave.  Washington DC is so much more exciting, with the regime ensuring that the few "youths of unknown race/ethnicity" are only detained for an hour or two at most before being allowed to return to the streets and start making life more interesting again.

We Hungarians are also impressed that in many American cities shoppers are encouraged to buy fewer things in plastic, to save the planet.  Your stores do this by telling shoppers to ask a clerk to open up locked glass doors shielding products from hasty, unnecessary purchases.  We've heard these locked cases are sometimes called "Pro-Diversity Protection Shields" but that phrase doesn't translate into Hungarian.

In any case, we're impressed that you've devised a way to reduce consumer purchases to stop Global Warming.  Placing goods like toothpaste, deodorant and aspirin behind locked glass doors seems very effective.

Another assault by our brutal dictator is that in public squares we're forced to see statues of Hungarian national heroes from the past.  The dictator refuses to remove these statues of the country’s oppressive, un-woke founders.  Our dictator doesn’t realize that oppressive figures from history must be banished from public view, as is happening in the U.S. and the UK.  Good citizens should be ashamed of their nation's founders, just as in the U.S, right?

White supremacy is a huge problem here.  Did you know companies don’t even have Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion divisions?  How do they even do business?

Though one often sees same-sex couples, Budapest suffers from a constant lack of "pride flags"--at least until the U.S. embassy hangs its rainbow flag during June.  In fact, in 2021 our brutal dictator outlawed LGBT information aimed at children and minors.  So now if young Hungarians wish to learn about anal sex, fisting, furries, how breasts are amputated, how to construct an authentic vagina and enjoy other benefits of liberal regimes, they have to consult foreign social media.

By contrast, your government has ensured that America's ten-year-olds can learn all they need by visiting the school library or talking to a teacher—who will know how to refer ze to medical experts without the awkwardness of having to inform ze or zer's parents.  Ensuring that parents are kept uninformed prevents uncomfortable discussions between oppressive parents and their oppressed offspring, which does seem quite progressive.

Worse, here in Hungary if parents don't support their child "changing gender," people don't believe the state should have the right to remove that child from the home, as is routinely done in the U.S.  Can you imagine? It's tragic that our brutal dictator won't allow children in Hungary to change their gender until age 18.  After the biden administration helps us overthrow this brutal dictatorship this will surely change.

Enlightened Hungarians are grateful to George Soros, a man of enlightenment, for doing all he could to undermine the Viktator and to teach Hungarians what’s really good for them (open borders and so forth), but apparently Orban’s brutal secret police prevented much progress.  
We look enviously at how successful Soros has been in the U.S., in funding leftist district attorneys in liberal American cities.  Those elections have increased freedom for those formerly imprisoned, and have ensured that vibrancy and dieversity are now in every U.S. city.  We grieve that we in Hungary don’t yet have these blessings.

Since you've been warning us about our brutal dictator, I must admit to being a bit confused when you demanded that members of congress who refused to applaud for Zelenskyy should be forced to explain why:

    For any Members of Congress who refused to clap for Zelenskyy, we need to know from them exactly why.
    — Michael Beschloss, December, 2022

Forcing explanations for people who don't applaud on cue seems a bit...Stalinist.  Dictatorial.  Since you keep saying how much you oppose dictatorships, I can only conclude that the above tweet wasn't written by you, or perhaps was some sort of code you wrote to show friends you'd been kidnapped by Orban's agents.

Except for that puzzle, you, sir, seem to be a beacon of wisdom for warning us of the dangers that Viktor Orban and Donald Trump pose to Our Precious Democracy.  Some of your fellow elites claim there's a "rising tide of far-right sentiment" in a few European nations, and that they're suggesting such awful things as forcing would-be immigrants to follow the rules, restoring public order and preventing the defense in trials of migrant rapists and murderers from using the claim that "My client din' know rape or murder were against the law in the U.S"--a defense successfully used many times in Europe.

The fight to save Our Democracy should not stop with would-be dictators Trump and Orban, but should also include the dictator of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.  Under his brutal, dictatorial rule he's has turned his country from the murder capital of the world into a decent place to live.  He did this by jailing about 3,000 gang members who were terrorizing the Salvadoran people.

It's totally unacceptable that dictator Bukele punishes some people merely for refusing to obey oppressive "laws." Surely enlightened people like you realize that laws are how white supremacists punish oppressed people for merely trying to make life more...exciting... than the dictator would like.  

Clearly we can't allow men like Trump, Orban and Bukele to impose these strict policies just to get things like crime-free streets, secure borders and unqueered children.  It's too great a price to pay.

The United States is lucky to have intellectuals like you to sound the alarm about the rise of brutal right-wing dictatorships like the one here in Hungary.  Sadly this sometimes means elites must have the courage to lie to the people.  

For example, just three weeks before the 2020 election a story broke that a laptop computer belonging to Hunter biden and containing "compromising information" had been abandoned at a repair shop.  Quickly 51 former U.S. intelligence officials--none of whom had examined the laptop--signed an open letter denouncing the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation.”

As it happens, the laptop was authentic, and contained photos and emails that, if known by the public, would likely have cost Joe Biden the election.  So we're really lucky those 51 officials said what they did, when they did, since they may well have saved the election for Joe Biden—which is to say, saved Our Precious Democracy.

Sometimes brave elites like you realize elites need to lie to citizens when needed, to help them understand distressing events.  America is fortunate to have elites willing to lie to guide people for their own good.

Your denunciations of Orban and Trump are in the same spirit of liberal journalist Kara Swisher’s advice to Biden on how to defeat his Republican opponent: "Call him 'rapist, racist, fascist' every day from now til the election."

Absolutely.  That will surely save our democracy, making voters forget about the six million illegal aliens—sorry, undocumented workers bearing gifts of diversity—who've entered the U.S. so far in Biden’s term.  As you know, the key is to keep the attention of voters on your claim that Trump "led an insurrection" on Jan 6.
 
One day, hopefully soon, the people of Hungary will shake off the chains of our brutal dictatorship and be able to breathe free--so we can to attend our very own Drag Queen Story Hours--assuming Islamic migrants don’t beat up the talent. 

Source:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/letter-from-the-goulash-gulag/