Viktor Orbán also spoke about Hungary's EU membership, the war in Ukraine, the state of the West and Christianity to a group of international personalities in the Carmelite monastery. Rod Dreher gave a detailed account of the two-hour conversation, according to which Orbán explained: the current social structures will collapse, "but he hopes they won't cause armageddon."
Viktor Orbán is "sharp-witted, funny, brilliant and completely confident", not at all as portrayed by the Western media, writes American journalist Rod Dreher in the American Conservative newspaper, a guest of the Danube Institute in Budapest, who as a member of a small group of foreign journalists and researchers on Thursday participated in a conversation with the Hungarian Prime Minister. He adds: Orbán spent two hours with them and gave meaningful answers to even the toughest questions, including a question from a Polish colleague.
Dreher gave a detailed account of the conversation that also touched on the issue of Hungarian EU membership: he edited the text after publication, clarifying on his part what exactly Viktor Orbán said about Hungarian EU membership.
The Russians are making a pile of rubble out of Ukraine
According to Rod Dreher, Orbán is "wrongly claimed to be Putin's puppet". At the same time, according to his summary, Orbán explained: Putin cannot allow himself to lose in Ukraine, as there will be elections in Russia next year. Besides, the Russians cannot afford to have a NATO ally next door. A quick Russian victory and a change of government in Ukraine became impossible, so the likely goal of the Russians is to turn Ukraine into an ungovernable pile of rubble that the West cannot present as a victory.
That is, according to Orbán
"Ukraine is the new Afghanistan, no man's land".
The prime minister said about a possible Russian coup d'état: in his opinion, only an even worse politician could replace Putin, and a coup d'état would not solve anything.
NATO is getting closer to war
If everything continues like this, according to Orbán, based on the trends, NATO will have to face the decision of whether to send troops to Ukraine.
But according to Orbán, EU and member state leaders will not discuss whether it is worth getting involved in the war. Why not? "Because they don't know who they are."
If we ask them who they are in relation to the war, according to Orbán, they will say that "I am the leader of a country who is on the good side of history", instead of looking at the interests of their own country. Their position is suggested by Washington and the liberal media. Orbán sees his role as one who, as the elected leader of his people, has to help the people to deal with the challenges.
We remain in the EU
Of course, the European Union debates were also discussed, and Orbán admitted that the distance between Brussels and Budapest is growing.
And the underlying reason, according to him, is that the two sides think completely differently about people and society - good examples of which are the diametrically opposed positions on gender ideology and immigration.
This is where the conversation came to the topic of Hungarian EU membership.
According to Rod Dreher, Orbán "said that it is painful for him personally that Hungary is in the EU and that it is subject to harassment by the EU, but there is no question that the country will remain in the EU, because its economic prosperity depends on it."
Orbán also admitted: "It's not easy for me to go there as I'm carried away by everything." He added: if one is to be a politician who can stand up to them, one must have a spine of steel and pay more attention to what one's own voters say than what one's opponents think about one.
Gender ideology must be overcome quickly
Rod Dreher asked the Hungarian Prime Minister about Christianity, who said: "Christianity cannot be regenerated with politics", since faith is ultimately based on personal conversion. But if Christians don't wake up and stand up against today's cultural trends, faith will disappear.
"According to my analysis, the social structure that was built in the previous thirty years is completely against human nature," said Orbán. "And it will collapse, hopefully without causing armageddon."
If we can quickly break the power of gender ideology and other progressive things, the return to tradition will be faster than we thought, but first they have to be defeated politically, explained the prime minister. According to Dreher, Orbán added: he does not understand how someone can be so conservative if he has no personal faith, and according to him, it is no coincidence that the fight in Europe is led by those Central European states that have been less influenced by disruptive modernity. At the same time, politicians can only increase people's material well-being, but it is not their job to give them a happy life.
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