From left to right: Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, US President Donald Trump, and Slovak PM Robert Fico (source: SME - TASR/AP)
On Thursday, a month after Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States, conservatives are gathering under his leadership in Washington, D.C., for the annual CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference).
This traditional annual conference, which has shaped the direction of American conservatism since 1974, has in recent years transformed into a showcase for national conservatism – an ideology that now unites opponents of liberal democracy.
Among the speakers will be Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. Until recently, he falsely and manipulatively branded himself a social democrat, but today he stands among those proclaiming new world orders.
It will be crucial to watch what messages emerge from this gathering, as a kind of national conservative revolution is unfolding, not only in Western democracies. “We have returned to the main path of history,” declared Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in late January in Bratislava, following a meeting with Fico – just a day after Trump assumed power for the second time.
But it is not just Trump, Orbán, or Fico. Also taking the stage will be former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Poland’s former prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, a nominee of the Law and Justice (PiS) party. In the audience, national conservatives from around the world will be in attendance, including Milan Uhrík, a Slovak MEP from the far-right Republika party.
National conservatism, however, extends beyond these figures – it includes Marine Le Pen in France, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Jarosław Kaczyński and Poland’s PiS, as well as the Brexit movement under Nigel Farage. It has absorbed elements of Putin’s Russian fascism and shares ideological roots with Narendra Modi’s Hindu conservatism and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s increasingly Islamist regime.
“In the entire Western world, as of yesterday (January 20 – the date of Donald Trump’s inauguration), we are now the majority. The ideas that were dismissed as isolationist just days ago have become mainstream. We have returned to the main current of history,” Orbán declared in Bratislava.
For now, it seems that national conservatism will dominate political discourse for the coming decades. Yet history offers a clear parallel: when an ideology built on national identity is wielded by autocratic populists against democracy, the outcome is clear. National socialism.
The crisis of democracy
The global rise of authoritarian populism and national conservatism is the result of a crisis in liberal democracy, as described by authors such as Timothy Snyder, Anne Applebaum, Yascha Mounk, and Moisés Naím.
They agree that the root causes include growing economic inequality and stagnation in democratic countries; the rise of social media and the phenomenon of post-truth politics; increasing polarisation and the surge of populism; cultural resistance from the state-forming majority against the expanding pluralism and diversity of democracies; the weakening of institutions; and a crisis of democratic representation, which has failed to respond adequately to these developments.
These factors have been further exacerbated by major global events – the 2008 financial crisis, the migration crisis in Europe in 2014 and later in the United States, the global Covid-19 pandemic from 2019 to 2022, and the largest conventional military conflict in Europe since the Second World War: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2014 and escalated into a full-scale war in 2022.
Populist autocrats, backed by oligarchs, have exploited this crisis of democracy, compounded by global developments, as a means to power.
According to Applebaum, autocracy does not grow solely because of the autocrats themselves – it is also aided by “collaborators: the media, business figures, and intellectuals who embrace authoritarian ideology.” This is evident in the case of Fico, who is supported by an oligarchic network, or in Hungary’s media landscape, where Orbán has taken control of the news. A similar dynamic can be seen in the backing Donald Trump receives – not only from Elon Musk, but also from other tech oligarchs such as Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.
The new totalitarian alliance
This is what an alliance of authoritarian populism and national conservatism looks like – providing autocrats with the ideological foundation they need.
The principles of national conservatism – or “natcon” for short – have been formulated in recent years by its leading theorist, Israeli-American political scientist Yoram Hazony, and by those involved in the National Conservatism Conference. Under his leadership, this conference has been held annually since 2019 in various locations across the United States and Europe.
Strengthening national sovereignty and the economy. Supporting traditional values and the family. Controlling illegal migration and protecting borders. Upholding law and order and ensuring freedom of information. Rejecting globalisation and focusing on national prosperity.
National conservatism thus presents itself as a rebellion against the developments of the past 30 years, for which it blames the liberal-democratic elites.
However, this is not a revolution in the true sense of the word – one that redefines social reality and offers new solutions. Rather, it is a counter-revolution led by autocrats and their allied oligarchs, who continue to benefit from the current system. That is why autocrats like Orbán create their own oligarchic class, why figures like Trump belong to it, and why politicians like Fico surround themselves with the existing one.
Most theorists – not politicians – who engage with Hazony’s ideas reject the notion that national conservatism should go beyond the boundaries of contemporary democracy. However, it is important to recognise that other perspectives within this movement are also inherently present.
Political theorist Patrick Deneen, who spoke at the NatCon conference in 2019, for example, argues that the “current elite” should be replaced by a “better aristocracy brought about by strong populism” in order to promote the “common good” – which is loosely interpreted as “integration,” including the reunification of church and state.
In reality, the alliance of autocratic populists, oligarchy, and national conservatism does not represent a better or new aristocracy. Despite their populist promises, their shared goal is not to resolve real crises but to preserve a system that allows them to continue reaping benefits. They understand that democracy contains internal mechanisms capable of overcoming crises, but such a process would ultimately weaken the very oligarchy they depend on.
That is why autocrats rely on what Moisés Naím describes as the “three P’s” – populism, polarisation, and post-truth. Populism allows them to present themselves as the only legitimate representatives of “the people” while discrediting elites, the media, and minorities. Polarisation continuously divides society into “us versus them,” making compromise impossible and even stifling any discussion on societal issues. Post-truth undermines trust in institutions, spreads disinformation, and attacks the credibility of critics.
They offer no solutions
At the end of January, when Trump assumed the presidency for a second time, he signed a series of executive orders alongside Elon Musk, immediately enacting his campaign promise of “Make America Great Again” (MAGA). He withdrew from the World Health Organisation, exited the Paris Agreement, issued directives to crack down on migrants, and imposed tariffs alongside sweeping cuts to inclusive policy programmes in the United States.
On the eve of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), he issued an order that effectively granted him control over federal institutions, subordinating their funding to his office and securing influence over the electoral process. The White House released an image of him wearing a crown with the caption “Long live the king.”
This is national conservatism in practice. And similar steps are being observed in other countries.
The rejection of globalisation and focus on national economies is dismantling international political and economic structures, as seen with Brexit and the rise of hard Euroscepticism in Slovakia and Hungary. This trend is leading to the breakdown of international law and imperialist ambitions, exemplified by Putin’s actions or Trump’s tendencies. The consequences are visible in Ukraine.
The supposed support for traditional values and the family translates into the exclusion of sexual and gender minorities, the denial of their rights, and public persecution – not only in the United States but also in Hungary. Migration control means forced deportations, the breaking up of families, restrictive refugee policies, and the outright rejection of solidarity, disregarding the demographic crisis in the ageing North Atlantic world.
The enforcement of law and order takes the form of legislation targeting NGOs, cultural figures, and civil society, gradually dismantling institutions – including the judiciary. In other cases, laws and legislation are simply distorted to benefit selected elites and oligarchs.
Freedom of information is reinterpreted as the unregulated spread of lies and disinformation through media controlled by the state or oligarchs, as well as through social media platforms that fuel hatred against groups designated as enemies by autocrats.
The emphasis on national exceptionalism, which nationalism inevitably carries, combined with autocratic populism, is only a step away from Trump’s citation of Napoleon: “He who saves his country violates no law.” Or Orbán’s political reinterpretation of Jesus: “Let us not be afraid to say it, because everyone can already see it: Hungary is a city built on a hill, and it is well known that it cannot be hidden. Let us rise to this mission, let us create it for ourselves, and show the world what a true, profound, and higher life built on the ideal of Christian freedom looks like.”
Timothy Snyder describes how national conservatism employs a “politics of eternity” – simplifying reality into a narrative of a golden past destroyed by enemies. Orbán seeks to build a greater Hungary, Trump to expand the United States’ influence, Farage pulled Britain out of Europe with promises of restored greatness, and for now, Fico is content with constructing the legend of Saints Cyril and Methodius.
Yet this so-called “new world order” – as national conservatives like to call it – fails to address the real problems of the modern world.
Global crises and challenges will not disappear simply because they are denied, ignored, or because nations withdraw from organisations and agreements designed to address them. Climate change remains a pressing reality, even as Trump torpedoes the Paris Agreement.
The migration crisis, whether in the United States or Europe, will persist even if countries close their borders and begin mass deportations. Global security cannot be achieved by appeasing war criminals and terrorists.
Covid and the threat of future pandemics will not vanish simply because figures like Kennedy and Kotlár claim they will. The economic crisis in a globalised world cannot be permanently and effectively resolved by launching another trade war.
National conservatism offers no concrete, evidence-based solutions to these challenges. They lack the ability to govern effectively – so instead, they resort to destruction.
National conservatism and the populist autocrats who embrace it need an enemy. Only systematically fuelled hatred can mask their incompetence and keep them in power.
Hatred breeds hatred, and hatred breeds violence
And so, national conservatism comes dangerously close to another ideological movement that once bore the word “national” - national socialism.
Just as the Nazis exploited the economic crisis of the 1930s to seize power, today’s national conservative movements are capitalising on public frustration over inflation, stagnation, and economic inequality.
Autocrats are now using national conservatism to appeal to the original state-forming majority of established democracies – the very group that, according to Mounk, has lost the promise of an economically prosperous future. Instead, they are made to feel as though their rights are being diluted, shared with an ever-growing collection of diverse minorities. This environment is fertile ground for the spread of disinformation and lies designed to cement autocratic rule.
Populists love to call this original majority “the people,” equating it with the nation itself and promising that it will once again be wealthy, important, and great. Just as the Nazis, led by Goebbels, mastered the information space, so do national conservatives today – whether through Orbán’s media empire, KESMA (Hungary’s Central European Press and Media Foundation), or the control of social media platforms in the style of Trump.
By monopolising the flow of information, they dictate who belongs to their chosen people or nation. As Snyder explains, autocratic propaganda paints this nation as a victim, justifying the authoritarian measures taken in its name.
National conservatives promise their people that “the others” will no longer exploit them (the elites), leech off them (the migrants), control them (the critical media), or dictate how they should live (progressives from Brussels). The Nazis, too, blamed Jews, Marxists, and liberals for society’s problems – branding them “internal enemies of the nation.”
Some of these enemies can be expelled, some can be curtailed through legislation, and some can be harassed by incompetent bureaucrats. But what happens when that is no longer enough? When the altar of national conservative ideology demands another sacrifice?
Today’s national conservatives are not yet forming paramilitary units to enforce their vision. But we have already seen an armed assault on the US Capitol, followed by the acquittal of those involved. We see cooperation with extremists like Daniel Bombic and the tolerance of militant groups like Brat za Brata.
In the end, all that remains is hatred. And with that, national conservatism inevitably merges with national socialism in its consequences.
The world is once again reliving the eve of the Reichstag fire - an event that gave the Nazis the pretext for sweeping repression and the final consolidation of their dictatorship.
Democracy on high alert
“The old world is dying, and the new one struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters,” wrote socialist philosopher Antonio Gramsci in 1929 from a fascist prison, where he would spend another eight years before dying from its effects. He never lived to see the worst consequences of what he had foreseen.
Today, modern fascists and autocrats are once again celebrating the end of the old world.
This is why a state of democratic emergency and mobilisation is essential.
Only a united democratic force, capable of overcoming its own divisions, can prevent autocrats from completing their takeover of democracies under the banner of national conservatism. A strict cordon sanitaire is necessary.
But it cannot simply be about preserving the status quo.
Democrats must offer genuinely new solutions – ones that respond swiftly and effectively to the needs of both local and national societies while also addressing global crises. Society’s demand for solutions cannot be met by making any one part of it a scapegoat.
And all of this must happen in a landscape where facts are pitted against a distorted reality built on lies. Democracy must match the agility and adaptability of autocrats – without violating the rule of law. People must not only feel that their concerns are being heard but also see real solutions delivered.
Now is the time for courage – and for the European Union to implement bold, large-scale reforms akin to those undertaken in the United States during the wartime mobilisation against Nazism.
One example could be a fundamental transformation of Europe’s energy and transport sectors, simultaneously addressing multiple challenges: employment, technological innovation, energy independence, and climate change. Another could be the much-debated issue of Europe’s strategic defence autonomy, including technological and material self-sufficiency.
Alongside these, democratic institutions must be reformed to restore the public’s ability to actively shape political life.
Otherwise, the new world will be defined by autocratic national conservatives at conferences like the one opening today in Washington.
© Sme
