There might be a grain of truth to that charge, but folks like Beauchamp make their living looking at the rest of the world. Applebaum won a few prizes for her books about the region, and when she writes, “Tucker Carlson is spending a week in Budapest in order to annoy Americans and everybody else who believes in the ideals of America: the rule of law, a free press, free elections, the conviction that democracy is preferable to autocracy,” she’s not wrong. Orbán has been quite candid on this point for quite some time, telling reporters that “liberal democratic states can’t remain globally competitive,” and that it is better to create “an illiberal new state” inspired by Russia and China.

Source: Washington Post August 09, 2021 11:03 UTC