Europe's far right is flourishing - just ask Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister

The prime minister has portrayed himself as his country’s savior, protecting Christian Europe against the Muslim hordes. Since 2014, when the prime minister infamously outlined his vision of “illiberal democracy” during a speech to ethnic Hungarians in Romania, strongmen—and, with the exception of Le Pen, it does tend to be men—have idealized Orbán. In 2011, Poland’s far-right doyen Jaroslaw Kaczynski said Orbán “gave us an example of how we can win”—and four years later, his Law and Justice Party took power. Other allies include Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and China’s Xi Jinping, who recently abolished China’s two-term limit, effectively meaning he can govern for life. For a global retinue of leaders and keyboard cheerleaders, Orbán has served as a paragon of what can be done with the right cocktail of rhetoric, circumstance and an unfettered will to power. But for Lendvai, a Jewish Hungarian who lived through both fascism and communism, Orbán’s apparent...