Trumpism around the world

In his victorious campaign to secure a third consecutive term as prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban had a clear, urgent message: The nation was at risk from an international cabal looking to undermine its sovereignty, and it would be overrun with migrants if he was not elected.

With his party firmly in control of this Central European country, Mr. Orban says it is time to take that campaign continental. On Thursday, in his first address to Parliament in his new term, he styled himself as the leader of a movement to reform the European Union and as defender of the sovereign rights of its member nations.

“Now we will be hunting for big game,” said Mr. Orban. He presented a vision for Europe that stood in stark contrast to the one embraced by Western leaders like President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, with their acceptance of political and ethnic pluralism, dissent and fairly high levels of migration from Asia and Africa and the Middle East.

“We need to say it out loud because you can’t reform a nation in secrecy: The era of liberal democracy is over,” Mr. Orban said. “Rather than try to fix a liberal democracy that has run aground, we will build a 21st-century Christian democracy.”

He made no mention of the Hungarian-American financier George Soros, whom he demonized nearly daily during the campaign, or of legislation aimed squarely at institutions connected to Mr. Soros. The laws are still likely to be enacted in some form, according to analysts, but there is no rush, as Mr. Orban made clear in his remarks.

In power since 2010, he confidently suggested that he planned to lead the country until at least 2030.

As lawmakers filed into the majestic Parliament building beside the Danube for their first gathering since last month’s election, passing the Holy Crown of Hungary, worn by monarchs for more than eight centuries, as a string quartet played, the event felt more like a coronation than an inauguration.

While populist leaders in other nations look to Mr. Orban’s political success as inspiration — success that critics say was built on undermining the traditional checks and balances essential to a healthy democracy — worried European Union leaders in Brussels have moved closer to tying the distribution of bloc funds to issues surrounding the basic rule of law.

Mr. Orban contended in a local radio interview that Hungary has a “moral duty” to refuse to take in refugees or asylum seekers as part of any European quota system — setting the stage for yet another bruising battle with Brussels.

“In Brussels now, thousands of paid activists, bureaucrats and politicians work in the direction that migration should be considered a human right,” Mr. Orban said. “That’s why they want to take away from us the right to decide with whom we want to live. It’s my personal conviction that migration leads in the end to the destruction of nations and states.”