NY Times printed an op-ed by a fascist

Taking the media’s balance fetish to its logical end, the paper ran a column by the “court historian” of the far-right Orban regime

A crowd gathers in Budapest, Hungary, in 2012 to hear far-right politician Viktor Orban denounce the European Union: “Hungarians won’t live according to the commands of foreign powers. They wont give up their independence or their freedom.” (Derzsi Elekes Andor / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA 3.0)

After years of running dire warnings about the dangers of populism with titles like “The Lure of Populism Weakens the Republic,” the New York Times finally decided it was time to the hear the other side. Last week, the paper of record ran an op-ed titled “The Case for Populism” by Maria Schmidt, a historian and former advisor to the far-right government of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban.

Schmidt briefly surveys the history of the Eastern European country from the end of World War II to the present day. A work of pure propaganda, the piece tells the story of an oppressed nation that could only be restored through the firm hand of a strong, visionary leader.

This sort of fascist myth-making is her specialty. Dubbed Orban’s “court historian” by the regime’s critics, Schmidt is skilled at weaving ahistorical narratives that buttress the prime minister’s nationalist project.

In addition to many glaring omissions, one can find several examples of Orwellian Doublespeak in Schmidt’s column. Thanks to Orban’s admittedly “illiberal” policies, she argues, “true majoritarian democracy and…