The Grand Budapest Cartel (James M. Patterso,n April 15, 2026, Providence)
When Vice President JD Vance was campaigning for Viktor Orbán earlier this month, he was also campaigning to preserve the Hungarian funding for the New Right organizations that would support his own future political ambitions. With Orbán defeated, that money is gone. The Hungarians, in their own way, helped decide the future of American conservatism.
How is that possible? How did this happen?
The answer is the ‘Grand Budapest Cartel.’ Orbán has spent the past decade engaging in a concerted influence campaign on American conservatism. The purpose of his efforts is not merely to familiarize conservative policymakers and think-tankers with Hungarian interests. Orbán wanted to remake American conservatism from the top down into an ideological movement that moves it away from limited government, religious pluralism, and a robust foreign presence, and toward right-wing social engineering, postliberalism, and an American retreat from foreign affairs. Orbán’s ambition is not his alone but also that of Orbán’s close friends in Russia and China. In short, the meaning of the future of American conservatism was also on the ballot in the recent Hungarian elections.