Of the nearly 200 different counties on the face of the earth, precisely one has an elected leader who publicly identifies a western-style conservative. His name is Viktor Orbán, and he’s the prime minister of Hungary. Hungary is a small country in the middle of Central Europe. It has no navy or nuclear weapons. Its GDP is smaller than New York State’s. You wouldn’t think leaders in Washington would pay much attention to Hungary, but they do, obsessively. By rejecting the tenets of neoliberalism, Viktor Orbán has enraged them. What does Orbán believe? Just a few years ago, his views would have seemed moderate and conventional. He thinks families are more important than banks. He believes countries need borders. For saying these things out loud, Orbán has been vilified. Left wing NGO’s have denounced him as a fascist, a destroyer of democracy. Last fall, Joe Biden suggested he’s a totalitarian dictator. Official Washington despises Viktor Orbán so thoroughly that many, including neocons in and around the state department, are backing the open anti-Semites running against him in next April’s elections.

We’ve watched all of this from the United States, and wondered if what we’d heard could be true. This week we came to Hungary to see for ourselves. We sat down with Orbán for a couple of long conversations.