Hungary and the Attack on American Higher Education

This morning I listened to an exceptional episode of the Radio Atlantic podcast, "Why Trump Wants to Control Universities," featuring education reporter Adam Harris. Harris argues that the targeted attacks on universities like Columbia, Penn, and Harvard reflect a strategy developed over the past several years by far right intellectuals. And these thinkers have studied and draw inspiration directly from Viktor Orbán's Hungary.

Let me take a step back. Hungary has played a prominent role in my presentations on Christian nationalism since I began offering them in 2022. Right wing Christian activists first developed crushes on Vladimir Putin for his embrace of an authoritarian Christian nationalism that especially punishes LGBTQ persons. One Lancaster County White nationalist spent years in Russia before settling in Lancaster, only to flee back to Russia due to his involvement in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. After Putin's invasion of Ukraine rendered such love interests uncool, Orbán's Hungary became an inviting place for right-wingers to hang out. Orbán even founded a think tank, the Danube Institute, to attract Western intellectuals. As things developed, in 2023 the very conservative, um, Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held its first meeting outside the United States in Budapest, then featured Orbán as a speaker in Dallas just months later. 

Also in 2023, I enjoyed the opportunity to visit Hungarian democracy activists alongside a group of organizers from here in the US, thanks to support from POWER Interfaith and Faith in Action. Having studied in advance of the trip, it became clear to me that American radicals were drawing policy ideas directly from Orbán. Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law had already been previewed in Hungary, and efforts to shame away efforts to achieve racial equity in educational and nonprofit life also drew inspiration there. The choices to target transgender persons and immigrants? Hungary got there first.

During the podcast Harris pointed to a significant blog post by Christopher Rufo, the activist who takes credit for launching the campaign against so-called Critical Race Theory and whom Florida Governor Ron DeSantis placed on the board of the New College of Florida in an effort to turn the very liberal (by reputation) campus into a facsimile of Hillsdale College. (Not my characterization--theirs.) Rufo is a fellow of the Manhattan Institute. While enjoying a 2023 Danube Institute fellowship in Budapest, Rufo wrote a thought piece celebrating "Orbán's War."

Rufo's piece begins by acknowledging Hungary's reputation for authoritarianism. He shares that he wanted to learn how Hungary "is attempting to rebuild its culture and institutions, from schools to universities to media," drawing upon "traditional themes of faith, family, and national identity." This should all sound familiar. In order to shore up "family life, Christian faith, and historical memory," Hungary began--this is critical, began--with education. It marginalized public education, turning childhood education over to private Christian schools funded by the government and took over the nation's public universities. (They also forced the removal of Central European University to Vienna.) According to Rufo, and he's probably correct, these steps aimed "to create an enduring conservative counter-hegemony." In other words, taking over education amounted to the first step toward ending functional democracy. Rufo thinks that's just peachy.

Harris also mentioned another thought piece by Max Eden that first appeared in the Washington Examiner. Lest you think that's a "real" newspaper, the Examiner features a banner that reads, "Restoring America."

Writing in December 2024, just a month prior to Trump's inauguration, Eden offered "A comprehensive guide to overhauling higher education." An American Enterprise Institute fellow, Eden is fond of florid language, the kind that also appears in the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership:

America has spent the past four years under an administration that governed according to university-created woke ideology. In the past year alone, college presidents kowtowed to pro-genocidal campus quad glampers. All of this has totally flipped Republicans, and so many people in general, against our universities.

But here's the thing that should chill all of us. Eden recommends that the incoming (now confirmed) Secretary of Education Linda McMahon should begin by cutting off funding to universities, including attacking their "insanely cushy deal on research grants." That happened early, didn't it? (Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier attempted to set the record straight on these grants in an email to university constituents.)

Then Eden went double creepy: 

The most interesting actions, though, wouldn’t require Congress. To scare universities straight, McMahon should start by taking a prize scalp. She should simply destroy Columbia University.

This is precisely the path the Trump administration has followed. They have conducted an end-run around Congress, one that has provoked quick litigation, and they chose Columbia in particular for their "prize scalp."

Clearly, Hungary has set the model for Trump's largely illegal attack on higher education. The plan, simply, is to weaken one of America's greatest resources as a competitor in the global economy. Elite international students desperately seek placements in our best schools precisely because they are so highly regarded. These people want to cancel that excellence.

Let's pause and consider how things are going in Hungary and Russia. It's widely known that Trump seems to offer nothing but praise for Vladimir Putin. Less appreciated is his love for Orbán, the only international politician Trump praised during his presidential debate with Kamala Harris. Moreover, Orbán visited Trump on multiple occasions in 2024. So how are things going with those two countries? 

In a word, Hungary and Russia are suffering. Authoritarian governments on the left and the right breed corruption. (We might ask why Elon Musk enjoys dismantling agencies that regulate his businesses or why one of Trump's first actions was to eliminate inspector generals from key agencies.) With Orbán in power, Hungary has fallen to being perhaps the poorest nation in the EU--this despite its prodigious potential. As of 2023, the World Bank recorded Hungary's per capita GDP at $22,142. After 8 years of authoritarian government Poland was in about the same place. Russian, meanwhile, stood at $13,817--and we haven't even mentioned the million or so casualties Putin's invasion of Ukraine has inflicted upon his own people.

These radical thinkers don't turn to Hungary (or to Russia) because they want Americans to flourish. They turn to Hungary today because they desire to impose their ideology on the rest of us.

More Chaos Than You Can Count--By Design

Chaos stands among the fascists' favorite tactics. If you want a system to fail, you create disorder. And if you want a social system to fail, you do it in so many places all at once that people can't keep up.

Just my opinion, but who knows? Our job, y'all, is to keep our eye on the ball, name the costs, resist when necessary, and let the dissatisfaction boil until society will no longer tolerate the misery the chaos produces.  

So some samples.

1. Trump seriously wants Canada--or at least parts of Canada. His rhetoric is destabilizing--to Canadians--and intentionally so. As with Greenland, he wants to dole out Canada's rich natural resources to his cronies. He wants to impoverish everyone but himself and his minions. (See: Russia, Hungary.) Trudeau put it this way: “What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that’ll make it easier to annex us.” 

2. Corruption is the whole game. According to Robert Reich, "Trump has dropped or halted more than 1 in 5 investigations and actions against corporate lawbreakers. At least 34 of those companies--including Tesla, Amazon, and Wells Fargo--gave over $34M to Trump's inaugural."

3. Judges are showing their exasperation with Trump's power grabs. A federal judge has enjoined those DEI executive orders that target universities and other non-profit organizations. According to the National Law Review, the judge ruled that "the plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits that the termination, certification, and enforcement provisions are unconstitutional, so any agencies acting pursuant to those provisions 'would be acting pursuant to an order that Plaintiffs have shown a strong likelihood of success in establishing is unconstitutional on its face.'”

Another judge expressed shock--"It sends chills down my spine"--that Trump claimed the authority to punish law firms for representing clients his administration attacks. 

4. By cutting over 80,000 jobs at the VA, the administration is making it impossible for veterans to receive essential services, not least access to mental health care. And there's no remedy in sight to address a problem of that scale.

5. Similar cuts to the Department of Education call into question our capacity to administer student loans, issue funding for public schools, provide care for students with disabilities, Again, so-called "school choice" is really a vehicle to take money out of public education and send it to the wealthiest among us and to irresponsible speculators. Moreover, it harms student performance. But student learning is beside the point here. 

6. Apparently Donald Trump can decide who counts as a Jew and who doesn’t. Some chilling Nazi stuff there. But of course, chaos is the point.

Greg’s Books of the Year on Christian Nationalism and Democracy, 2015-2025

These books are the ones that have most shaped my outlook on the problems we confront from the brew of racialized money and religion.

These selections come from my larger bibliography. This is not a “best books” or “favorite books” list. Kristin Komez du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne is a classic. I marinated in John Fea’s Why Trump?, even published a review. Some books I haven’t read—but I have read excerpts and listened to long form interviews. For three years I couldn’t choose between two great ones. And some influenced me only years after they came out. In one case, the author reached out to me about a question when I had no idea about his work, I initially resisted the thesis, and now I’m completely sold.

2015

Ingersoll, Julie J. Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Kruse, Kevin M. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America. New York: Basic, 2015.

2016

Jones, Robert P. The End of White Christian America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016.

2017

Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2017.

2018

Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown, 2018.

Mounck, Yascha. The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2018.

2019

Metzl, Jonathan M. Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland. New York: Basic, 2019.

2020: tough year! Too many good ones.

Jones, Robert P. White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020.

Whitehead, Andrew L., and Samuel L. Perry. Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

2021

Butler, Anthea. White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021.

2022

Hollinger, David. Christianity's American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular. Princeton University Press, 2022.

2023

Onishi, Bradley. Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism--and What Comes Next. Minneapolis: Broadleaf, 2023.

2024

Taylor, Matthew D. The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy. Minneapolis: Broadleaf, 2024.

2025

Stewart, Katherine. Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy. New York: Bloomsbury, 2025.