One evening last fall, J. D. Vance threw open the doors of his home, a Queen Anne'style mansion on the campus of the U.S. Naval Observatory, to Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary. Over drinks in Vance's study, the vice president asked Orban for an update on life in Europe. Specifically, he wanted to know how quickly Christian faith was vanishing from the continent. The get-together, described to me by someone who was present, was informal. Only close aides were included, among them Orban's political director and Vance's national security adviser. And then there was Gladden Pappin, a Harvard-trained, U.S.-born political theorist with round, dark-framed glasses and graying hair. Few people have ever heard of Pappin. Until I began examining the U.S.-Hungary relationship'trying to understand why President Trump and the people around him are backing Orban's reelection this month as if he were a swing-state Senate candidate'I hadn't either. So what was he doing alongside Orban at...
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