Article #275293

The Last Week Tonight host examined the rightwing Hungarian leader’s slow domestic coup as a model for Republican leaders

On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver looked into the reign of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, ahead of the country’s election on 12 April. The rightwing leader is the longest-serving head of state in the European Union, having been elected in 2010 with an absolute majority in government for almost 16 years.

A staunch religious conservative, he is also beloved by some Republicans in the US, and has been officially endorsed in the upcoming election by Donald Trump. But “the lovefest between Orbán and American conservatives is a two-way street,” Oliver explained. Just last week, Orbán praised the US president at a Republican party Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) offshoot in Hungary. “Since President Trump’s win, the western world has become a better place,” Orbán said. “Gender propaganda and woke ideology have been pushed back. People can proudly embrace Christianity as the foundation and sustaining force of our civilization. What’s happening now is the largest political realignment in western civilization in 100 years. The epicenter of this change is the United States, and its European forward base is Hungary.”