Note that when Viktor Orbán talks about the epidemic, he uses the term “defensive operation.” This is not just a matter of looking at one particular virus. It is a question of an overall view of the world. Orbán’s nationalist understanding of the world is that the government is there to defend the nation from those threats that the individuals cannot, by definition, handle: mass migration, epidemics, multinational banks, NGOs attacking the psyches of young children, rising energy prices, etc. It is “threat identification – defence operation” thinking. It is a mentality that does not want to limit people, re-educate them or bring them to “true knowledge.” It does not debate whether they are moral or immoral, pious or impious. The government is responsible for maintaining an overall healthy environment and for defending against threats. Citizens cooperate with such a government. Understandably so.
Orbán’s nationalist understanding of the world is that the government is there to defend the nation from those threats that the individuals cannot, by definition, handle…
Note that this is a very different mindset than we see on both sides of the conflict in the Czech environment. In our country, it is as if there are no external threats. The opposition solves how to damage the government, and the government solves how to eliminate the opposition. I do not mean just the opposition in parliament, but all sorts of opposition groups on the streets, in the internet environment and elsewhere. Liberal economists, on the other hand, are figuring out how to re-educate the population. The fanatics in the non-profits are figuring out how to re-educate them in another direction. Even the Hungarian opposition thinks like this. This is something in which Orbán’s nationalism is exceptional in contemporary Europe.
