Tucker Carlson went to Hungary. He’s filming a week of his crazed, sycophantic, lunatic fringe talk show on-location in one of the most autocratic countries in Europe.

It is too easy to shrug your shoulders and write off what he is doing. “Wow! He’s nuts! He’s sucking up to another dictator, fine, ok. Same old Tucker, ha ha! This could never happen here, in America.”

Couldn’t it?

Before I answer that – and if you have been seeing my updates recently, I think you know what my answer will be – I want to explain what happened in Hungary. You will quickly see exactly why this should be so troubling.

So yes, what is happening in Hungary could happen in America. It is only too easy.

Tucker and Bannon and the rest of the mob have for years praised Hungarian Prime Minister Orban’s system of government as “what democracy should be” and “the future of Western civilization.”

Here is just a partial list of Viktor Orban’s anti-democracy tactics that he and his authoritarian party have used to great effect in Hungary – transforming Hungary’s democracy into a one-party autocratic state. 

Demonizing the “other”: Orban has successfully inflamed anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic fervor in Hungary, claiming his rule is the only thing that can “defend Hungary’s families” from the threats of George Soros and immigrants. To Orban, wealthy globalist liberals are to blame. He built a wall to keep immigrants out and tried to get the EU to pay for it. All of this is shifting the blame onto a target that ethno-nationalists can rally behind. Hate immigrants? Fear the Jews? Then you have a home in Orban’s party. He manipulates and stokes these fears constantly to hold onto his own power. He calls it “The Movement,” and it has worked.

A corrupt media onslaught: The media has effectively been turned into state-sponsored propaganda, attacking anyone Orban sees as a threat to his rule. This is a classic authoritarian tactic. He uses it as a cudgel and anyone – including civil servants, judges, anyone who speaks out against him – is a potential target.

Brainwashing Hungary’s education system: This is one of the darkest tenets of Orban’s rule. He has fully transformed the education system in Hungary. Must-read novels in schools are by Fascists who supported Mussolini. And of course there is no mention of Hungary’s only Nobel winning author because he focused on the Holocaust. A leading Hungarian teacher who has spoken out against Orban, Gyorgy Fenyo, told Reuters that Orban’s mandated curriculum “leaves no freedom for thought but dictates what we are meant to think.” Orban is using a faux-culture war to eradicate critical thought in schools.

Subordinating the judiciary: Orban and his cronies have completely transformed what was once an independent judicial system in Hungary. Now, a decade of cronyism and political attacks, along with assaults in the media, have turned the judiciary into a weapon for Orban’s ruling party. Hungarians can no longer count on an independent judiciary to uphold the rule of law or democratic principles. Whatever Orban wants is the law.

Extreme gerrymandering: He’s protecting his reign by stacking the deck. Orban’s party rewrote the political map in 2011 with no independent input. An analysis by an independent think tank shows that left-leaning districts have been significantly gerrymandered with thousands more voters per district than districts favoring Orban’s party. What this does in practice is it makes it nearly impossible for anyone other than Orban supporters to win. You can’t out-organize it or out-campaign it. The math makes it too difficult.

Legitimizing political violence: A poll done by a Budapest think tank found that 12% of Hungarians believe that “terrorism can be an acceptable tool to reach some political goal.”

I could write 4,000 more words on everything going on in Hungary and why it is a match made in heaven for Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon. But read the list above again.

What items on that list has Trump’s autocratic mob not either accomplished or put on their wish lists? 

• Demonizing the other: Ever hear Trump talk about immigrants? Attack Soros? Now they’re blaming COVID on immigrants.
• A corrupt media onslaught: Turn on Fox, Breitbart, or any of the dozens of outlets creating an alternate reality.
• Brainwashing the education system: It isn’t just the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world running for school board. It is more endemic than that. They’re using Critical Race Theory to get back into schools and get rid of pro-democracy thought.
• Subordinating the judiciary: This has been Trump and McConnell’s stated goal. They aren’t even hiding it. McConnell hijacked Garland and Trump got three SCOTUS nominees. Now the Supreme Court is 6-3 with pro-right judges. We aren’t getting it back anytime soon.
• Extreme gerrymandering: Beyond the gerrymandering dozens of GOP-led states have already enacted, more could net Republicans 10+ seats next year, making control of the House - and the rules - simple math.
• Legitimizing political violence: January 6th is just the beginning. 15% of Americans believe that resorting to political violence is justified to save our country, according to a recent study by a respected nonpartisan institution, PRRI.

Vox called it in 2018: “One of the most disconcerting parts of observing Hungarian soft fascism up close is that it’s easy to imagine the model being exported… its playbook for subtle repression could in theory be run in any democratic country whose leaders have had enough of the political opposition.”

Steve Bannon called Orban “the most significant guy on the scene right now.”

That scene, of course, is authoritarian movement politics, and it is in full bloom in America.

And now you see Trump is encouraging his supporters to sign up for “official Trump supporter cards” that happen to be blood-red and gold with a rather familiar-looking eagle on it. All it’s missing is the swastika it carries. The mask is slipping. There can be no doubt what they are blatantly dog-whistling.

The question is no longer: “what are we going to do about it?” It is “what do we HAVE to do about it?” It is both a simple and a difficult answer. The simple answer is we have to form a coalition of everyone who is pro-democracy. There is no Left vs. Right anymore. Only everyone who is ready to work together for one goal: beat the autocrats and save our democracy. Our policy disagreements must wait. If we are lucky we can beat this authoritarian movement and then have the arguments again. But if we do not defeat them, we won’t have that chance.

Our #ProDemocracyCoalition is growing every day. Every time you share a video of ours or a news article with a friend or a neighbor, it matters. Every conversation you have helps. Yes, we are building the Lincoln Project into a force to be reckoned with. We have the luxury and the responsibility of saying things other people won’t. Truth to power. But this cause is bigger than any one of us or any one group. This is a coalition to save our democracy. Thank you for being part of it.

You are keeping us in this fight.

-Steve