Tucker Carlson: Hungarian architecture proves Americans don't understand 'how bad it can get'

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Tucker Carlson praises Hungary's architecture, says it 'moves him'

Fox News host talks to Hungarian students about government and politics on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight'

Fox News host Tucker Carlson offered remarks at a recent event in Hungary, after holding an exclusive interview with Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Carlson spoke of the dichotomy between the present state of the United States, politically, architecturally and culturally, to that of Hungary under the self-described ‘Christian-democratic' Orban.

The "Tucker Carlson Tonight" host remarked that architecture in Hungary is much different than the "dehumanizing" glass and steel of the United States, which he described as essentially demeaning to those who work and live in it. Contemporary U.S. structure are built for personnel and occupational capacity, which removes the importance of the individual:

"Dehumanizing is the act of convincing people that they don't matter, that they are less significant than the larger whole, that they are not distinct souls, that they are not unique, that they are not created by God, that they are merely putty in the hands of some larger force that they must obey," Carlson said.

"Mies van der Rohe architecture was designed to send that message not to uplift, but to oppress. And it is very noticeable and this is never noted in the United States, which unfortunately over time has had its aesthetic sense dulled. We've been told it's not important," he said, keying into the dehumanization aspect once again: 

"What matters is GDP really, you know, get the new microwave or whatever. The new car, the new place in Aspen."

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In contrast, Hungarian and Central European architecture is essentially a lesson to the West of how good Americans have it, to the point that they don't understand or can't fathom the world across the oceans from them, the host continued.

He pointed to bullet holes still lodged in the Gothic buildings – something few places in the U.S. outside of towns like Gettysburg, Pa., or Franklin, Tenn., – can lay claim to. 

To the American observer, Carlson said, seeing buildings wracked with wartime damage prove "a very useful reminder" to those who don't collectively have memories or fears of things going bad in that way in one's daily life.

"I wish I lived in a city full of bullet holes in the building because every morning you look at them and you think to yourself, it could be really bad because it's been really bad. There's a lot at stake," he said, adding that the permanently damaged buildings remind Hungarians to "make wise, sober, long term decisions or else you could wind up with more bullet holes."

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"I could spend all day leveling very accurate accusations against the American foreign policy establishment, but the main one would be that they have no sense of how bad things can get," he said, calling it the "bad side of the upside of America."

"America is an optimistic country, always has been," Carlson said noting that the pilgrims "showed up in this mostly untouched continent with the most fertile farmland in the world and an ocean to separate us from the lunatics," he remarked.

"And it gave us the feeling that anything is possible and everything has been possible. And I've never stopped being grateful for that or proud of it. But the downside to that, the flip side, the obverse, the other side of the coin, as you say in Hungary, is that Americans have no sense of how bad things can get, that it actually could be a lot worse. Our physical isolation cuts us off from the history of the rest of the world."

"There's not a passion to study what happened before in a place that you're building a new. Right, right. So we don't have a sense of that. So I love your bullet holes. Let me just say, I'm probably the only visitor to your nation has complimented your small arms and artillery scars …The buildings are pretty. The architecture uplifts. So this is another this is another third rail of American politics," Carlson said.

Carlson also remarked about how well Hungarian citizens speak the foreign language English very well:

"Every Hungarian I have met, every from the driver to the waiter to the border guard had better English than our own president," he said.

He added that Hungary's emphasis on national security is another unfortunate dichotomy between Orban's Hungary and Biden's America.

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Recalling a visit to a border station, Carlson spoke about being impressed by a tacit but "powerful display" as he asked a Hungarian border guard how often throngs of illegal immigrants come across the border or its fence. The guard silently stopped his pace, looked down, and picked up a plastic wrapper, and moved on.

"I don't think I've I have seen in my life very few displays more powerful than that," Carlson said.