'Fear-driven alliance': Conservative explains why far-right CPAC 'opportunists' and 'paranoids' are meeting in Hungary

The rise of authoritarianism and fascism growing within the Republican Party was discussed by the opening panel on MSNBC's "The Reidout" on Friday.

Host Joy Reid noted how the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is being held in Hungary this year, which is ruled by strongman Viktor Orbán.

"They have elections, of a sort, but also hamper voters' abilities to make informed choices and heavily control the outcome that the elections are essentially a show," she explained. "These are the autocratic dreams of a far-right leader obsessed with solidifying a Christian monoculture and who, in 2014, declared his intention to build an illiberal new state citing China, Russia and Turkey as role models. Flash forward to today where CPAC, the once conservative gathering that is now simply a cesspool of the far-right running amok, is holding its conference in Budapest."

For analysis, Reid interviewed conservative writer Tom Nichols.

Nichols warned "there is a nihilistic, fear-driven alliance here with a group of opportunists, and I want to get back to this issue of about Hungary, the really dangerous thing here is that some of these people believe very deeply in -- in some of this stuff and yet others, and I would say people like [Tucker] Carlson and Matt Schlapp and some of the other people capering about in Budapest, don't believe in any of this and don't believe in anything of this other than the extension of their own personal power and wealth.

"And when you have this coalition of shallow, empty opportunists along with with a group of paranoids, basically, then you have a really dangerous movement because each side has to keep upping the ante to kind of justify why they are doing the things they are doing," he explained.

"A lot of this is an act, but the problem is you then paint yourself into a corner... You have to start actually trying to put forward policies and carry things out that, that make you look as if you believe the things that you're doing. And then after a while, whether it's an act or its opportunism is no longer relevant: You have become the thing you've been prancing about and pretending to be," he explained.

Watch the segment below or at this link.

Tom Nicholswww.youtube.com