The Enduring Appeal of the Strongman Playbook
When Senator Marco Rubio declared to Hungary's Viktor Orbán that 'your success is our success,' as reported by Bloomberg, the exchange was presented by mainstream outlets as a gesture of conservative solidarity. This public affinity between a prominent US lawmaker and a figure increasingly criticized for dismantling democratic norms in Europe might appear, on the surface, as a shift in American
foreign policy priorities. Yet, this isn't a novel development; it's a well-worn pattern. Decades earlier, in 1973, the Kissinger administration offered covert support for Augusto Pinochet's coup in Chile, ushering in a brutal dictatorship that killed over 40,000, all while Washington publicly preached democracy. More recently, in 2019, the Organization of American States (OAS), heavily influenced
by US funding, actively bolstered the coup narrative against Bolivia’s democratically-elected Evo Morales, paving the way for a right-wing interim government amidst claims of electoral irregularities later disproven. The double standard is glaring: while Washington routinely decries 'authoritarian threats' in nations like Iran, which holds democratic elections despite immense external pressure, it
readily champions similar leaders like Orbán, whose government has systematically stifled media freedom and judicial independence, according to the European Parliament, which invoked Article 7 against Hungary for breaching EU values in 2018. This selective condemnation reveals a transactional foreign policy, where 'democracy' is less a principle and more a flexible tool to advance specific