For the right, building relations with authoritarian regimes has been a way to support policies no longer - or not yet - acceptable in the US, a way to learn from foreign leaders, offer much-needed support and project their political fantasies for the US on another nation free of the constraints of American law and tradition. This relationship between right-wing media figures and authoritarian leaders is not unprecedented.
And Orbán’s regime has, in turn, reached out to the Pretty Good At Drinking Beer Shirt and by the same token and US right to gain legitimacy within US politics, something Carlson and others are happily providing.
