1. With the Reactionary International, lobbying $$$ plays as much a role as ideology. Arthur J. Finkelstein, Paul Manafort & Roger Stone are emblematic figures who discovered the synergy you can get from acting as a bridge between USA right & foreign autocratic counterparts
2. It's hardly an accident that Tucker Carlson's dad is bigwig in firm that represents Orban. Not that there is a direct quid pro quo but rather that there is a small shared social world where lobbyist & right-wing media overlap.
3. An interesting precursor to the current Orbanolatry is the Pinochet cheerleading of the 1970s/1980s. One key example is William F. Buckley setting up with Nena Ossa (an agent of Chilean regime) the ostensibly private American-Chilean Council. 
4. The American-Chilean Council was tight with the American right in ways that were far outside the bounds of journalistic ethics. Many National Review writers/editors took Chilean junkets & wrote celebratory accounts.
5. Praising National Review writer Robert Moss, Nena Ossa said of his report from Chile: “Fortunately he seems to be enough to the Right to understand that he cannot possibly write all he sees and hears. His fight against Marxism is much more important than being a journalist.”
6. Some more thoughts on the role of lobbying and junkets in the authoritarian right: jeetheer.substack.com/p/funding-a-cr…
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