What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[DGuller]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkgp5vsSsxQ

Sarah Palin is running for Congress.

I long for the times when Sarah Palin was considered to be the height of recklessness when it came to nominating people for political office.

[Habbaku]

I don't see the big deal. She'd just quit a year into her term anyway.

[Valmy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkgp5vsSsxQ

Sarah Palin is running for Congress.

I long for the times when Sarah Palin was considered to be the height of recklessness when it came to nominating people for political office.

I mean she was governor of a state. Being a member of Congress is a much lower office.

[FunkMonk]

Remember when Mitt Romney said he put the family dog in a carrier on top of the car when he went on family vacation? "He loved it up there." Good times 

[Eddie Teach]

Yes. That is why it was so grating having to respect him for impeachment vote.

[DGuller]

I wonder if in 2032 we'll be going "Remember when inciting an insurrection was considered a damning behavior by a president?"

[crazy canuck]

I wonder if in 2032 we'll be going "Remember when inciting an insurrection was considered a damning behavior by a president?"

If it is remembered then we have some hope

[Jacob]

Saw a thing on social media saying CPAC is meeting in Hungary with Orban as a keynote speaker.

Is that current and correct?

[Habbaku]

Yes, currently scheduled for May 18-20th.

Expect them to hold Orban up as the exemplar of what a real leader is.

[Sheilbh]

Saw a thing on social media saying CPAC is meeting in Hungary with Orban as a keynote speaker.

Is that current and correct?

Yes - I think it's their first CPAC outside of the US. And follows the National Conservatism's Europe meeting, also in Budapest I think.

Orban's a big inspiration on that/the Claremont Institute wing of American conservatism (and not uncoincidentally lots of people are being funded by the Danube Institute to come and stay in Budapest for a few months for research - lovely flat in the city centre, lots of generous dinners etc):

Jeremy Carl
@jeremycarl4
Orban won a stunning victory and probable 2/3 parliamentary majority based on a campaign that was conservative, nationalist, anti-immigration, pro-traditional family, and firmly against military intervention in Ukraine.

A lesson there for the GOP, if we are willing to learn it.
Note: I recently returned from five weeks in Hungary as a visiting fellow at the @InstituteDanube, where I was researching Hungarian politics and policy in the runup to the election.

And Rod Dreher in particular has been in and following Hungary for a while - his conclusion on what the American right needs to learn:

I have been saying for the past year that US conservatives should come to Hungary to learn from Orban and Fidesz. Orban is not a small-government Anglo-Saxon conservative. He believes in using the power of the state to strengthen families, the basis of any health society. But the most important thing US conservatives can learn is how to use political power to fight the culture war — and not in the most obvious ways, such as with the referendum. Orban is a country boy who knows very well how the Left dominates culture here in Hungary, especially cultural institutions. And he understands, in ways that elude American conservative politicians, how the soft power wielded by the Left in those institutions changes society in progressive ways. This is why for all the political victories the GOP has racked up over the past few decades, the broader society and culture has continued its accelerating drift leftward.

As I wrote last month, quoting the political scientist Eric Kaufmann and his research on American society, conservatives absolutely cannot afford to be complacent here, and mindlessly observe the old liberal habits of keeping the government's hands off of non-political matters. As Kaufmann pointed out, the younger generation in the US is so far to the Left, and so hostile to old-fashioned liberal values like free speech and tolerance of diverse opinions, that if conservatives don't find a way to stop or reverse these trends, there will be no place for us to exist in the America of the near future.

The call now among some Republican commentators for the state to take action against Disney, to revoke its special privileges on copyright to retaliate for its indoctrination of American children, is a pure Orban move. We need to see more of it. Republicans have been so prostrate before Big Business that they have sat there like idiots while Woke Capitalism organizes to turn conservative values of faith and the traditional family into pariahs among the young. Either we on the Right will learn from Viktor Orban how to use politics to fight this, or we will be defeated.

The Disney/transgender controversy in America now is a tremendous opportunity for conservatives to fight back against the liberal elites. The LGBT lobby controls the Democratic Party, and Biden's HHS rules last week show how out of touch he and his party's leadership class is from the concerns of ordinary Americans. When the Left is coming after your kids — and it really is — we cannot afford to stay out of the fight. And we cannot afford a Republican Party that mouths the right things, but when in power, does little or nothing to roll back the Left's gains.

[Barrister]

In what was has Orban's government actually "fought the culture war" in Hungary, other than to encourage those who disagree with him to emigrate to the rest of the EU?

[Jacob]

That all makes sense. The Conservative elites are going all in on subverting political institutions and processes and subjugating independent thought that doesn't align with their values. Crony capitalism in bad with state power in the name of family, the nation, Christianity, and humiliating and exploiting your lessers.

Russia is such a shining example of success, so best to emulate their European client in Hungary.

I wonder if the American national security and defense apparatus is concerned about this?

[Jacob]

In what was has Orban's government actually "fought the culture war" in Hungary, other than to encourage those who disagree with him to emigrate to the rest of the EU?

From my reading of Tamas: eliminated independent media by bringing it under state control or the control of oligarchs aligned with his movement. Ensured that arts and culture support "Hungarian values" as defined by Orban... probably some other bits too.

[Sheilbh]

In what was has Orban's government actually "fought the culture war" in Hungary, other than to encourage those who disagree with him to emigrate to the rest of the EU?

Lots of "pro-family" policies (largely subsidies), confronting Soros' university, this year's anti-LGBT referendum, pushing the idea of Hungary as a Christian country and Europe as a Christian continent (though neither are particularly religious), using state subsidies to support conservative civil society institutions/NGOs (such as the Danube Institute) to inculcate a supportive public sphere etc.

In a way for someone like Dreher it's the natural conclusion of the theory the right has had for years that politics is downstream of culture and they're losing the cultural battle. Before this he was all about the "Benedict option" of conservatives retreating into their own self-regulating societies outside of the state because the battle was lost. I think Orban makes him think they can use their strength in the political arena to assert control of that. Especially with the "America in danger" rhetoric - what have been giving themselves permission to do?

[FunkMonk]

I wonder if the American national security and defense apparatus is concerned about this?

I think this is the sort of thing they are manifestly ill-equipped to handle. What do you do, as a senior military official at the Pentagon, if a President who wins on the back of a significant popular mandate, shuts down several major independent media outlets?

You could resign, of course, but that also means someone else takes your job who is likely hand-picked by the President.

You could plan a coup, but that completely upends traditional American civil-military relations, and ultimately makes the military the legitimate arbiter for any future government.

We may have to establish at some point a sort of "Second Republic" as alluded to in the other thread.