* In light of the picture painted in this article of Mr. Orban, his treatment of Richard Spencer and the conference that he sought to organize last year becomes even more incomprehensible.
* Spencer was an outsider whose plans were ferreted out by enemies in the USA and communicated to their Hungarian fellow travelers well in advance of the Spencer NPI meeting. Unbeknownst to Spencer, the Hungarian activists started talking Spencer up in the Hungarian media: anti-semite, Nazi, KKK, anti-semite, racist, etc. (you know the drill).
Orban knew nothing except what he read in the papers and what he could easily figure out: Spencer and pals were foreigners whose presence the Hungarian activists were using for agitprop purposes in the media. Spencer had no ground game or connections in Hungary. He just wanted to meet in a nice European town.
From Orban’s perspective, why waste political capital on a handful of unknown foreign tourists/conventioneers meeting in a local hotel? Particularly since Orban had no idea of the factual claims the Hungarian press was making. If you are Orban, you pick your own battles. You don’t let Hungarian activists use random foreigners and pick them for you.
