nATIONALISM IS EVERYWHERE AND ALWAYS JUST iDENTITARIAN BIGOTRY:

In context, Dreher insists, Orbán isn't talking about race-mixing at all but "using the term 'race' as a symbol of religion and culture"--in other words, as a euphemism for "Muslims," which is apparently not bigoted at all. (Yes, you can discuss problems of acculturation and integration in immigrant communities, particularly following large influxes of migrants from war-torn countries, without promoting hate. No, talking about "Islamic invasion" or "Islamic occupation" as Dreher does--using more belligerent language than Orbán himself did in his speech--is not the way to go about it.)

In fact, even if "he's only talking about Muslims" were a viable excuse for the prime minister's words, it would be patently inaccurate in this case. While Orbán did mention "Islamic civilization's . . . incursion," he explicitly defined the "post-Western" part of Europe as "a world where European and non-European peoples live together" (emphasis mine), which he believes amounts to loss of nationhood. And while he predicted that Hungary would eventually have to take Christian refugees from those de-Westernized and deracinated Western countries, there is no indication that he would be willing to extend such a welcome to Christian refugees from the Middle East or Africa. Finally, Twitter users with knowledge of Hungarian language and culture have pointed out that the word for "race" used by Orbán has a long history of being used with a strong antisemitic connotation--something that was clearly not lost on Hegedüs, who is Jewish and a child of Holocaust survivors.

Ironically, in the course of his Orbán-apologist contortionism, Dreher drew attention to a passage from the prime minister's speech that other media coverage has missed: the fulsome praise for The Camp of the Saints, the 1973 anti-immigrant bible by French author, reactionary Catholic, and monarchist Jean Raspail (who died two years ago at the age of 94). It is, Orbán gushed, "outstanding . . . I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand the spiritual developments underlying the West's inability to defend itself."

Raspail's novel--the full text of which can be easily found online--is highly popular with the American and European far right. Erstwhile Trump adviser Steve Bannon is a fan. So is Steve King, the former congressman from Iowa who managed to become a pariah even in the Trumpified Republican party by wondering aloud why such terms as "white nationalist" and "white supremacist" should be considered offensive. So is Stephen Miller, the immigration policy chief in the Trump White House.

Dreher doesn't exactly love The Camp of the Saints. He read it back in 2015 in response to refugee crisis in Europe, and reported that it is "a bad book, both aesthetically and morally," but nonetheless one with "something valuable to say to us"--namely, that "the sentimental liberal humanitarianism" of the West's elites and their longing for "redemption for the West's sins" will bring about the death of Western civilization by stripping it of the will to defend itself against the invading hordes from the Third World. (A similar take on Raspail's novel--yes, it's "deeply unpleasant," and it's easy to see why it was almost universally dismissed as a "racist tract," but it's also uncannily "prophetic"--can be found in Douglas Murray's 2017 book The Strange Death of Europe.)

In 2022, Dreher is reiterating the same theme: Yes, The Camp of the Saints is a bad and racist book--but it's sort of got a point. 

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