Orbán cabinet official: Stakes in US presidential election have never been higher – UPDATED
The stakes in a United States presidential election have never been as high as they are now, Balázs Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister’s political director, said in a keynote address to an international geopolitical summit in Budapest on Tuesday.
The liberal world order is over, and at the dawn of a “new world order”, conservatives have to know what positions, narratives and way of thinking are needed in order for them to be the winners of the new era, Orbán told the event organised by the Danube Institute and The Heritage Foundation.
Orbán said that after the Cold War the Washington Consensus had built in exchange for money and access a Western liberal world in which the values represented by conservatives had no place. But, he added, the liberal world order had “failed” and the rest of the world, which had chosen not to adopt liberal values, had turned against the West.
He said that from an economic policy standpoint this had strengthened the West’s challengers, while from a social standpoint it had caused tensions in the West that had undermined the conditions of peaceful coexistence, public safety and trust. It had led to the emergence of multiple power centres of which no given block was strong enough to rule over the rest, and all such attempts led to armed conflicts, the suffering of millions, economic decline and the collapse of the social structure, he argued.
Orbán believes we should fight against “imperialist ideologies”
Orbán said progressive liberals were on the side of the war that was weakening Europe while the conflict was leading to a weaker European economy. Europeans and Americans, he added, bore responsibility for creating peace.
Concerning the principles of the world order based on sovereignty, Orbán mentioned basing economic decisions on national interests and the preservation of traditional values, saying that in this area there was a greater need for conservatives than ever before.
He called for fighting all “imperialist ideologies” that aimed to erase nations and wanted the world to be governed by a homogenous, centrally-controlled political power.
The political director said it was not an exaggeration to say that the stakes of a US presidential election had never been as high as they were now. The leading power of the Western world, he added, needed to be led by those who actually understood global changes. He said this was not simply about the future success of Hungary or the US, but about the success of all of Western civilisation.
UPDATE: American Hungarian diaspora org sets sights on young people
Getting young people involved in the Hungarian community in America is a paramount task, Andrea Lauer-Rice, president of the Hungarian American Coalition, said in connection with the diaspora organisation’s annual gala. This year’s gala, the 19th, witnessed the formation of the HYPE Network (Hungarian Young Professionals Engagement Network), a community of American Hungarian professionals active in the diaspora community involving young people, Lauer-Rice told MTI, noting that 650 young Hungarians have been given the chance to stay in the United States.
For the diaspora to be able to renew itself and survive, young American Hungarians must strive to rejuvenate the community, she added.
Businessman and computer scientist Charles Simonyi, former governor of New York State George Pataki, ambassador Gyorgy Habsburg and Edith Lauer, honorary president of the American Hungarian Coalition and one of the organisation’s founders, attended the gala dinner. Hajnalka Juhasz, deputy head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, and Hungary’s ambassador to the US, Szabolcs Takacs, also attended the event, she noted.
Awards of the American Hungarian Coalition were also presented, one of these awarded to the Carpathian Foundation for its work to improve the quality of life in the Carpathian Basin. The Coalition delivered an ambulance, the eighth, to Ukraine in August, Lauer-Rice said.
The 80th anniversary of the Holocaust in Hungary was also marked with an exhibition and musical performance at the gala evening hosted by Larz Anderson House, a historic mansion situated near Kossuth House, in Washington, DC.
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