Viktor Orbán’s Illiberal Cheerleaders – WSJ

For Reagan-era conservatives in the U.S. and abroad, the key issues were economic growth, limited government and opposition to communism. While President Reagan made common cause with evangelical Protestants and other social conservatives, he didn’t allow them to dominate his rhetoric or his agenda. While his depiction of the U.S. as a shining “city on a hill” elided a multitude of ills on which his critics rightly focused, it was an optimistic and inclusive vision of what the country at its best could be.

Mr. Orbán’s starring role in America’s New Right marks the waning power of the conservatism Reagan inspired and the rising appeal of a different vision, dominated not by economic hope but by cultural fear. According to this new vision, Western civilization is being attacked from within by liberalism run amok. Making freedom the core value, as many American conservatives once did, erases the line between liberty and license. In a liberal society, the New Right charges, everything is permitted—except social conservatism, which is under mounting legal and cultural attack. And because the threat is existential, it is legitimate to oppose it by all necessary means.

In a recent speech, Mr. Orbán made this new conservatism’s priorities clear. He dismissed economic concerns such as inflation and the energy crisis as a “screen” between us and the real issues—“demography, migration, and gender”—at the heart of the “great historic battle that we are fighting . . . between left and right.”

Mr. Orbán’s focus on cultural concerns raises issues that his critics must confront. At their heart is the meaning of liberalism.

Along one dimension, liberalism is a philosophy of politics whose core is the fear of concentrated power that turns tyrannical and suppresses liberty. To ward off tyranny, power is divided among different branches and levels of government. There are also natural rights, including those of religion and conscience, that no government—even one that represents a majority—can rightly breach. Liberty is further secured by civil liberties—such as freedom of speech, assembly and press—that protect the diverse opinions and beliefs that arise in a free society. An independent judiciary protects the rule of law and enforces that boundary between permissible and forbidden government action. All citizens enjoy civic equality of rights and legal protections regardless of any differences among them, including race and religion.

In recent decades, however, liberalism has developed a cultural dimension that challenges traditional hierarchies, including race and ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, and religion. It is this challenge that most disturbs Mr. Orbán—and America’s New Right. From their perspective, immigration from non-European sources is not an economic opportunity but a cultural threat, and the inclusion of those previously excluded from the mainstream weakens Western civilization.

Three decades ago, most Americans saw same-sex marriage as a threat to the so-called traditional family, widely held to be one of the pillars of this civilization. Today, more than 7 in 10 Americans, including majorities of Republicans and the elderly, support same-sex marriage. It is hard to find evidence that this shift has weakened the institution of marriage, let alone Western civilization. In response, social conservatives have shifted their attention to transgender issues, the latest alleged threat to the foundations of our civilization.

As a political philosophy, liberalism creates space for a robust debate between those who challenge traditional gender and family relations and those who oppose them. Similarly, liberal societies are free to adopt a range of immigration policies, from open to restrictive. Liberal philosophy insists only that this debate be resolved peacefully, in accordance with the legal and institutional norms of a free society.

Mr. Orbán famously declared that he is creating an “illiberal democracy.” If this meant only fostering a democracy whose citizens reject same-sex marriage and open immigration policies, it wouldn’t violate the tenets of political liberalism—though the particular measures would be subject to the limitations imposed by his country’s voluntary membership in the European Union. But Mr. Orbán has also weakened fundamental liberal institutions of liberal society, such as a free press and an independent judiciary. This is not something anyone should ignore, let alone tolerate in the pursuit of desired policy goals.

Social conservatives go wrong when they challenge the rule of law, including the peaceful transfer of power in accordance with the people’s choice. But cultural liberals go too far when they blur the distinction between their beliefs and the requirements of a liberal polity. True liberals must defend core political institutions while preserving a wide space for differing cultural opinions and practices.