Below is my column in The Hill on the defeat of Viktor Orban. There was good-faith criticism of Orban as autocratic. However, the irony is that Hungary may have now cleared the way for the final stage of the European Union in overruling individual nations and their citizens on core policies.
Here is the column:
The defeat of Viktor Orban in Hungary last weekend was celebrated by many who saw the former president as establishing single-party rule in his central European nation. The irony is that this claimed victory for democracy may fuel the establishment of a global governance system that is neither democratic nor accountable to citizens.
The European Union was criticized by many for taking sides in the Hungarian election and for undermining Orban, who asserted national priorities in disputes with the EU. No sooner had Orban conceded defeat than a jubilant European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for the final coup de grace for national identity and sovereignty: the elimination of the ability of nations to stand against EU policies.
Orban was controversial for his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his lack of support for Ukraine. He was also accused of authoritarianism and corruption. I shared in some of those criticisms. However, the unintended consequence of this election could be the removal of a single autocrat in favor of a global bureaucracy.
Van der Leyen helped elect the pro-EU Peter Magyar in order to remove a barrier to the EU’s ultimate exercise of power. The EU had been squeezing Hungary over its defiance by holding back billions in funds. Despite his tough talk on negotiations with the EU, Magyar is expected by EU bureaucrats to be a suppliant, willing to fall into line with the EU agenda.
The EU Chief has reportedly already given Magyar a list of 27 demands he must meet before she will turn the spigot back on. She did not try to hide the agenda, announcing that the EU needed to “use the momentum now” to consolidate its power.
Under the plan, member states would lose control of their policy and could be forced to adhere to the priorities and values of the EU majority.
The EU Chief celebrated the new day of global governance in the making: “Moving to qualified majority voting in foreign policy is an important way to avoid systemic blockages, as we have seen in the past.”
In “Rage and the Republic,” I discuss the dangers posed to the American republic this century by the rise of global governance systems like the EU. The book explores how globalists planned to gradually get nations to yield their authority to the EU — destroying national identity and sovereignty in favor of an EU bureaucracy in Brussels.
As the EU moves to kill off national sovereignty, EU commissioners are calling for a single European military command, completing a longstanding globalist goal.
The 250th anniversary of our republic is occurring as we face an unprecedented EU threat. Our revolution was fought against a foreign empire. It now faces an even greater threat from a global government asserting the right to compel American companies to censor Americans and comply with environmental, social and governance or ESG policies.
At the same time, American figures such as Hillary Clinton are encouraging the EU to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights using the infamous Digital Services Act to restore speech controls to social media. Other Americans have testified before the EU, calling on it to fight the U.S. Banners are now flying in Europe declaring, “We are the Free World Now,” as the globalists attempt to supplant freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
If the American Republic is to survive another 250 years, it must preserve key rights that the EU has been systematically destroying in Europe — freedom of speech, division of powers and political accountability of decision-makers.
That is why, I believe, the EU is inherently unstable and likely to ultimately collapse.
The EU has worked very hard to dismantle national sovereignty and identity in its member states. Historically, such collapses have been followed by different forms of tyranny.
Whatever comes next — and I could be wrong in my pessimism about the EU — the U.S. must take seriously the threat that this global governance system poses to our own values and sovereignty.
Von der Leyen is right that there is “momentum now” for the globalists, but the momentum of history still rests with the U.S. and its unique experiment in self-governance.
We saw this threat before, and we defeated a world empire. If we are to survive and thrive in this century, we will need to return to our own creation as a republic — to dig deep down and remember who we are as citizens.
Ours was the first Enlightenment revolution that embraced natural rights originating not from government but from God. We remain a unique people, joined by an article of faith found in our own Declaration of Independence. If this republic is to survive, it will be up to each of us, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, to “keep it.”
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Do EU members have to pay dues?
The Europe is becoming more like the US, which they see as good. Free trade, free movement, common defense benefit all. Each country is still a sovereign country, they just realized that working together makes everyone better off. North America would be much weaker if each state/province was an independent county with their own import laws, boarders, military, and incompatible laws.
And yes, they do have different limits on free speech than in the US, and that is good. They have seen first hand what unrestricted free speech leads to.
Along these same lines there was a podcast from JNS studios in Jerusalem with Fiamma Nirenstein and Gol Kalev that I found informative. Gol Kalev is a Jerusalem Post journalist and author. Fiamma has a bit of trouble expressing herself in English (she’s native to Florence) but despite this the point the two were making is that because Europe is so upside down in its thinking (and not just its current thinking but historically so) that it is now creating a global security problem. It appears blythely unaware that it is doing so. https://youtu.be/5VViUwQ-jps
If the EU is “inherently unstable” and “likely to ultimately collapse” (as he predicts), it cannot simultaneously be a potent, existential threat to the United States’ own 250-year-old constitutional system.
While the EU has stricter regulations on hate speech and digital misinformation (such as the Digital Services Act) compared to the U.S. First Amendment, Turley frames this as “systematic destruction. He likes to frame all things EU through our constitutional views which is wrong. They view free speech differently and that’s their right. It does not mean it is wrong or worse than what we have.
He ignores that EU member states are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, which explicitly protects free expression. By contrasting the EU directly with the American Republic’s survival, he suggests that any regulation of the digital commons is a precursor to “tyranny,” ignoring the fact that European citizens regularly use their speech to vote out the very “decision-makers” he claims are unaccountable. Hungary’s ouster of Orban is a pretty good example and that is despite Orban’s throttling of freedom of speech in Hungary to maintain power. Something Turley “forgot” to mention.
Truley is getting more and more unhinged and separated from reality every year
The EU “cannot *simultaneously* be a potent . . ” (emphasis added)
Nice job, deceptive one.
You injected a contradiction into JT’s argument, where none exists.
His argument is very clear. (Did you not follow it or did you intentionally mangle it?)
JT’s actual argument: *Right now*, the EU is a threat to American values. If the EU continues *in the future* with its collectivist policies, it is “likely to ultimately collapse.” (JT)
Per your usual intellectual dishonesty, you altered JT’s now vs. the future to read: “simultaneously.”
This is all concerning but not surprising. All of the masks came fully off during COVID.
Given that so many of our most ignorant voters are of a certain vintage: in science fiction parlance, the modern left think they are the Rebellion, or The Independents, or The Federation, when in fact they are the Empire, The Alliance, The Borg. They think they are punk rock when really they are the homogenized crap it was a response to.
For older folks: JFK and his party are dead. hippies turned out to be the biggest conformists of all. You are voting for Mao, Mussolini, Stalin, or Hitler. Nothing seems to be able to penetrate the wall of your TDS and conditioned thinking.
We can’t go down this road.
Says the guy who voted for someone who posted a photo of himself as Jesus Christ AND claims that the only power he answers to is his own moral authority. Yeah, sure man – the Democrats are definitely the problem here….
Did you forget when the MSN put a Halo on Obama.
Destroying national identity and sovereignty *inevitably* leads to tyranny. Different nations have different customs, moral values, and material interests. Forcing them all to obey a single agenda and cultural template is tyrannical no matter who dictates it.
As I argued in my book *Why Sane People Believe Crazy Things*:
“In case of disagreement, do human groups have a right to force their moral views on the other groups? If we answer yes, then the inevitable result is either perpetual war (if no group can dominate the others) or tyranny (if one group can win). History suggests that no group can permanently dominate the others, so we end up with perpetual war. At least in theory, nobody wants that. In practice, we’d like to avoid it.”
https://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Crazy-Things-Second/dp/1736477544/
Forcing? EU member states reach consensus on rules and laws. Nobody is forcing them to accept these laws.
I generally agree with Turley on this one. An international governing body would likely destroy America’s guaranteed Bill of Rights that hopefully can be restored post-Trump (post-dictator).
It would have been beneficial for the United States to have joined the International Criminal Court. If we were bound by the ICC, it would have created a strong deterrent effect against George W. Bush’s war crimes and human rights abuses.
During the Bush years – like today – Congress refused to provide constitutional checks & balances on a president that was highly disloyal to his Oath of Office, disloyal to the constitutional rule of law, ignored federal criminal laws, ignored legally binding treaties, violated the Geneva Conventions (which protects American troops in future conflicts) and ignored the Nuremberg Defense precedent used to prosecute Nazis after World War Two. The USA under Bush was for the first time condemned by Amnesty International and the International Red Cross (a Christian founded organization).
Bush officials even violated Republican icon Ronald Reagan’s torture treaty – legally binding under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution and codified into federal criminal law. Bush betrayed Reagan!
Maybe the worst thing was Bush created a “Unitary Executive Theory” (voters elect a dictator every 4 years) that Trump abused even more. Trump’s abuses of power were made possible by Bush’s lawlessness and disloyalty to his Oath of Office.
On torture, blacklisting-torture and cruel treatment belonging to the International Criminal Court could have provided a strong check & balance in a highly disloyal president – since that Congress was derelict in its duty.
@Report
Wow, that is some first class, gaslit, trolling. Today’s piece has struck a nerve, to be sure. Sure, ‘Report’, up is down, eh?
Is there any remaining doubt remaining the modern left is part of an unelected globalist regime?
Just one ‘remaining’, typo. Maybe the extra emphasis is necessary.
“The Report” movie happened during the Obama Administration – the movie was pro-American constitutional rule of law.
It was not anti-Republican. In fact on torture, it would be great to restore the Party of Abraham Lincoln – to make Lincoln’s Party great again;)
Both parties covered up torture, blacklisting-torture and destroying our rule of law system. Maybe watch the movie based on true events? It’s also about looking the other way on war crimes, by both parties.
So now we know we tortured mostly the wrong people, why hasn’t Congress apologized to their torture victims in more than 25 years for this gargantuan blunder?
james your comments rank, at best, as juvenile. “As for remaining doubt” … Are you a policy advisor for Trump or just a kool-aid drinking cultist.
I love headlines…
“WATCH: Outrage after Israeli soldier desecrates statue of Jesus Christ in Lebanon”
Hey, don’t be so hasty.
Maybe they are preparing to replace the statue of Jesus with a statue of trump.
Destroying idols is a biblical commandment.