OXON HILL, Md.—A Hungarian conservative leader warned that while President Donald Trump has made great progress, the global “woke machine” remains an abiding threat, propped up by Hungarian American billionaire George Soros.
Miklós Szánthó, who convenes conservatives for the Conservative Political Action Conference in Hungary, praised Trump for rooting out the U.S. government’s funding for leftist causes like gender ideology and open borders but warned that Soros and his allies uphold a globalist infrastructure that will continue to advocate these issues. He noted that Trump has paused international funding through the U.S. Agency for International Development but the Soros-founded Open Society Foundations will continue to fund similar projects.
“Although, thanks to God, USAID is canceled, the Open Society Network still operates,” Szánthó told The Daily Signal in an interview at CPAC last month. “So the fight against the woke machine, against this big geopolitical manipulation machine, is not over.”
Szánthó cited research from the Center for Fundamental Rights in Hungary—which organizes CPAC Hungary and is where he serves as president—that found that the Open Society Foundations has spent $1.4 billion in Europe in the past 10 years. He claimed that USAID and Open Society funneled “at least $20 million” to “Hungarian leftist media organizations, [nongovernmental organizations], think tanks, under projects like ‘human rights,’ ‘rule of law,’ ‘democracy,’ ‘climate change.’”
The Trump administration has halted most foreign aid, but the White House has highlighted how funds directed through USAID and other federal agencies propped up gender ideology, climate alarmism, and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs overseas.
USAID has many ties to the Left’s dark money network and to the activist groups that staffed and advised the Biden administration. My book, “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” lays out this vast influence campaign, much of which enjoys funding from Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
“Even with USAID canceled, this woke hydra has four or five additional heads,” Szánthó warned. “This whole woke machine is so deep.”
The Hungarian conservative contrasted Soros’ globalism with patriotism in Hungary and the United States.
“George Soros is a very typical ‘anywhere guy,’” Szánthó explained. He dismissed the idea that Soros, who grew up in Hungary, at all represents the Hungarian people. “There are localists, sovereignists—’somewhere’ guys—and there are ‘anywhere guys’—the globalists.”
He argued that Soros and his son, Alex Soros (who now runs the Open Society Foundations), are “typical ‘anywhere’ globalists, and although they speak about those ‘democratic values,’ what they really mean is liberal, progressive democratic values: open borders, gender policies, gender propaganda, weakening the family.”
“I wouldn’t say that George Soros would be Hungarian or American,” Szánthó said. “He’s a globalist.”
He emphasized that the current political dividing line “is not between the Left and the Right or progressives versus conservatives, but it’s between sovereignists and globalists.” He noted that former Vice President Kamala Harris represented the globalist campaign in the U.S., while Trump represented the sovereignist, patriotic side.
Szánthó warned that some of the same bureaucrats and leaders who held positions of power under Soviet influence went on to become the leftist elites now backed up by Soros’ network.
“Leaders, influencers, journalists who already worked 20, 30, 40 years ago—even before the Iron Curtain fell—now they are promoting, you know, ‘democratic values,’ ‘human rights,’ et cetera, but it’s the same people,” he said.
“The very same people” are pushing “the very same content” with “the very same goal: to undermine normality, to undermine common sense, to undermine God, homeland, and family. But now, they found new brands, new slogans.”
Szánthó also emphasized a “revolving door” between European Union bureaucrats and the nonprofits propped up by the Open Society Foundations—one similar to the Woketopus.
“This Open Society network also finances several Europe-wide entities, NGOs [nongovernmental organizations], human rights groups, and their staff—their researchers, their experts. Now they work for a Soros NGO,” he explained. “Previously, they worked for the European Commission. Before that, they worked for the European Court. Before that, they worked for the European Parliament. Now, they are civil activists. But the next year, they will go back to the European deep state.”
Szánthó described Hungary as “the island of freedom or island of difference” in the “liberal/progressive ocean that is Europe.”
He urged conservatives to “combine forces” across national boundaries—with Trump in the U.S., President Javier Milei in Argentina, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungary—to launch “a revival of the patriots.”
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
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