America is loud right now. Not productive loud. Leaf-blower-at-6-a.m. loud. Everyone has a microphone, nobody has patience, and the national posture is a permanent forward lean toward the next outrage. Into this circus walked a dozen Buddhist monks who decided the correct response was to shut up and start walking.

Not marching. Not rallying. Walking. Two thousand three hundred miles of it, from Fort Worth, Texas, to the marble pressure cooker known as the United States Capitol.

The monks come from Huong Dao Buddhist Temple, a community rooted in discipline, meditation, and the deeply unfashionable belief that inner work precedes outer change. Which immediately disqualifies them from most American movements, where branding usually comes first and thinking comes later.

They left on October 26, 2025, planning a 120-day pilgrimage with an arrival date of February 13, 2026. No list of demands. No carefully vetted language. No “movement partners.” Just the radical gamble that example still matters.

THE RULES THAT MAKE THIS UNCOMFORTABLE

This isn’t a vibes walk. The monks are following strict monastic practice the entire way.

• One meal a day.
• Sleeping outdoors under trees.
• Minimal possessions.
• Total reliance on donations and human decency.

That last one is doing a lot of work in 2025.

There’s no safety net here except community. Which means every mile is a quiet referendum on whether people still know how to be people.

TRAGEDY ALONG THE TREK

On November 19, a truck struck the pilot vehicle escorting the group in Texas. The impact pushed the vehicle into the monks. Two were seriously injured. One monk lost his leg.

If this were a normal American story, the walk would end there. Lawsuits. Fundraisers. Trauma-branding. A pivot to speaking engagements and inspirational merch.

That didn’t happen.

They paused. They issued a statement asking for prayers. They expressed gratitude. And they kept going.

The monks didn’t turn the injury into a moral cudgel. They didn’t demand attention. They didn’t convert suffering into spectacle.

They absorbed it and kept moving.

That’s not softness. That’s discipline so severe it borders on confrontation. It dares the rest of us to explain why we collapse over inconvenience while they recalibrate after catastrophe.

WHY WALKING WORKS WHEN TALKING FAILS

Walking is slow. It denies the modern addiction to immediacy. You can’t doomscroll a pilgrimage. You encounter it. On a shoulder of a road. At a gas station. In a town you forgot existed.

This walk bypasses the outrage economy entirely. No algorithm can speed it up. No pundit can own it. No political tribe can fully claim it without missing the point.

Peace isn’t being argued. It’s being demonstrated at three miles an hour.

WHY D.C. IS THE DESTINATION

They’re heading to Washington because Washington is where America pretends to be coherent. But when they arrive, there will be no siege of conscience, no legislative wish list, no grand finale.

Just a brief message. Then silence.

Which means the burden doesn’t land on politicians. It lands on the rest of us, who will have watched people cross ten states on foot and still insist the problem is “them” and not how we live.

THE PART NO ONE WANTS TO ADMIT

This walk isn’t about Buddhism. It’s about exposure.

Exposure of how little most movements are willing to sacrifice.

Exposure of how allergic we’ve become to patience, humility, and quiet resolve.

A dozen monks and a dog are crossing America without asking for anything except space to walk. And somehow that feels more threatening than a thousand angry speeches.

That tells you everything you need to know.

WHEN THEY ARRIVE

February 13, 2026. No fireworks. No slogans. Just worn sandals, scarred bodies, and proof that peace is not a sentiment. It’s a practice. One step at a time.

America can watch. Or keep yelling.

Either way, they’ll still be walking.

Closer to the Edge exists to surface moments like this. Stories that quietly expose how hollow our outrage culture is, how little most movements risk, and how discipline, care, and responsibility still scare the hell out of a system built on noise.

If you want reporting that doesn’t blink, doesn’t sanitize, and doesn’t confuse volume for courage, subscribe. We follow the long walk, not the loud crowd.

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This post has been syndicated from CLOSER TO THE EDGE, where it was published under this address.

At a lavish New York City party last Saturday, dozens of European politicians brushed shoulders with powerful Republican Party elites and allies.

DeSmog has identified more than 20 elected lawmakers from Germany and Italy who attended the event — the annual New York Young Republican Club (NYYRC) gala — through their social media posts that evening. They include members of the European Parliament as well as national and local elected officials.

The event was co-organised with the Center for Fundamental Rights, an ultra-conservative Hungarian think tank indirectly funded by the Hungarian government. Though that connection wasn’t publicized widely, the think tank was named in a printed event programme obtained by DeSmog, and its logo is visible in photos posted on social media from the event.

“We are in the trenches together,” István Kovács, the center’s strategic director, said during a speech he gave at the gala.

Kovács noted that “my organization, the Center for Fundamental Rights, has a history with the [New York Young Republican Club]” and said that the two groups will be hosting events together in Hungary next year, including another CPAC Hungary.

Since Saturday, the gala has drawn consternation in both the United States and Europe for playing host to a number of well-known white supremacists and anti-semites.

The event — which was held in a gilded hall off Wall Street — has long been known for hosting influential hard right figures, with Donald Trump and Nigel Farage attending in previous years.

At the NYYRC’s 112th annual gala In 2024, it hosted Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist. The club used this year’s gala to honour Markus Frohnmaier, a politician from the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), who received an award during the six-course dinner of baked tagliolini and prime rib.

Members of the NYYRC range in age from 18 to 40 years old. In October, Politico published details of racist and antisemitic messages between leaders of Young Republican groups, in which they referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people”, and joked about putting political opponents in gas chambers.

“The media went full schizo to insinuate that we were Nazis because of our connection to our friends at the most popular party in Germany, the AfD,” Stefano Forte, the president of the NYYRC, said while speaking at the gala. “Well, here’s a denunciation. We unequivocally denounce the fake news media”.

German MEP Martin Schirdewan, who leads The Left in the European Parliament told DeSmog that “when an Orbán-linked think tank co-organises events with extremists who glorify authoritarianism, flirt with Nazi symbolism, and call for mass deportations, it exposes the hypocrisy at the heart of their project.

“They present themselves as defenders of ‘freedom’ while working to dismantle democracy from within.”

‘Cultivating Resistance’

Frohnmaier has had close ties to Russia, according to a 2023 report from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. He has previously been identified as a major asset by the Kremlin, with a leaked Russian strategy document stating, “we will have our own absolutely controlled MP” ahead of his election in 2019.

Other Europeans at the Young Republican Club gala included the likes of Luca Toccalini, who is a member of the Italian Parliament for radical right party Lega and leads its youth branch, and Petr Bystron, a member of the European Parliament for AfD, who is currently being investigated over allegations of corruption linked to Russian bribes.

“The invitation to the Gala confirms increasingly solid relations between Lega and the Republican Party,” Toccalini told Italian press.

An NYYRC speaker also thanked Hungarian far-right party Fidesz, France’s National Rally, and Austria’s Freedom Party for attending. In response to a request for comment, Fidesz said that “there was no participation by Fidesz in this event.”

Tickets for the event cost between $700 and $30,000.

Speakers called for stronger alliances with nationalist parties in Europe, as well as advocating for Donald Trump to serve a third term as president — which would directly violate the U.S. Constitution.

The event was held just days after the Trump administration released its National Security Strategy, which saw the administration lend its most explicit support yet for “patriotic European parties”, echo the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, and state that Europe must “remain European, regain its civilisational self-confidence and abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.”

The strategy advocates for “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.”

DeSmog’s analysis of documents related to the gala shows increasingly close ties between the NYYRC and European far-right forces. A printed programme for the event obtained by DeSmog stated that NYYRC co-organised May 2025’s “Remigration Summit” in Italy, which saw hundreds of European politicians and far-right figures meet to call for mass deportations. The NYYRC’s role was not made public at the time.

European politicians used their visit to the U.S. to court other influential figures with close Trump ties. The AfD delegation met with Sarah B. Rogers, the administration’s Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, while Lega members stated that they planned to meet “U.S. officials, diplomats, and political representatives”.

Calls for Closer Ties

While the NYYRC was the public face of the gala, the programme for the event showed that the Center for Fundamental Rights also sat on the “Host Committee” that organised the event. NYYRC’s webpage states that individuals and groups can pay between $18,000 and $30,000 for a seat on the committee.

The Center’s role was not widely publicised. However, photos from the gala show that the think tank’s logo was one of three that appeared on backdrops at the event, alongside the logos of the NYYRC and Logan Circle Group — a consultancy firm with close ties to the Trump administration.

Other members of the organising committee included the American Principles Project, a non-profit that has campaigned against abortion, same-sex marriage, and transgender rights.

The NYYRC gala is the latest in a string of events co-organised by the Center for Fundamental Rights, including a “family values” conference in 2024 with the MAGA-linked Heritage Foundation and Orbán-backed Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC).

Last year, the Center for Fundamental Rights received €11 million of funding indirectly from the Hungarian government.

The NYYRC and the Center for Fundamental Rights have had an official partnership since 2023, when the two groups signed an agreement “to formally reaffirm our joint efforts to make Western Civilization [sic], based on Judeo-Christian culture, and the transatlantic conservative relationship even stronger”.

It is not the first time that the groups have cooperated on the gala. Hungarian media reported that Miklós Szánthó, director of the Centre for Fundamental Rights co-organised the New York City event in 2023.

The centre’s Kovács spoke at Saturday’s event about what he termed “the deep swamp of the European Union”. He praised Viktor Orban and Donald Trump, stating, “our leaders are working for peace”.

German-U.S. ties were also high on the gala’s agenda, with the NYYRC repeatedly celebrating its links to the AfD, which is currently leading in German polls and sent around 20 delegates to New York.

The NYYRC publicly endorsed the AfD in August, declaring, “AfD über alles” — “AfD above all” — an adaptation of a phrase strongly associated with Germany’s Nazi past.

“The German people are taught from a young age that a simple statement of support for their country, that ‘Deutschland zuerst’ — ‘Germany first’ — is almost a hate crime,” NYYRC Policy Chairman Dovid Holtzman told the audience at the gala, before bringing AfD politician Frohnmaier onto the stage. “If Germans cannot put Germany first, then Germany does not exist.”

Some Nazi Party phrases are now banned in Germany, including “Alles für Deutschland” (“everything for Germany”) and “Deutschland über alles” (“Germany above everything”). In 2024, Björn Höcke, the AfD leader for the German state of Thüringia, was fined €13,000 for using banned Nazi phrases in his election campaign.

In the gala programme, the NYYRC’s International Committee questioned Germany’s current democratically elected government, stating, “we assert that the current Germany government is tyrannical and possibly illegitimate”, and comparing it to the country’s former autocratic Soviet state.

Politicians from Lega and the AfD widely celebrated the New York gala on social media. Members of France’s National Rally, which has made concerted efforts to sanitise its extremist image in recent years, were more discreet about their attendance. The party has also been slower to embrace MAGA’s attention on Europe, in part due to Trump’s unpopularity in France.

MAGA’s Growing Influence in Europe

MAGA allies have been paying particularly close attention to Europe in recent months. The Heritage Foundation and CPAC have repeatedly been accused of interfering in elections, after backing radical right candidates in Poland, Albania, and elsewhere.

DeSmog revealed in June that pressure groups closely associated with MAGA had also worked to undermine EU laws that would require companies to present plans for cutting carbon emissions.

The NYYRC itself appears to be taking an increasingly active role in Europe.

In the gala programme, the group stated that it had conducted “outreach across the Netherlands, Slovenia, Germany, Austria, [and] Belgium” in 2025.

The group added that it had “gained prestige by organizing and endorsing the Remigration Summit in Milan”. The secretive event, which was publicly hosted by 23-year-old student Andrea Ballarati, saw far-right figures promote remigration — a hardline plan to deport migrants and their descendants, regardless of citizenship, birthplace, or legal status.

Among its attendees was Isabella Tovaglieri — an Italian MEP from Lega who also attended the NYYRC gala.

In May, the club also sent over 40 members to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Hungary, a gathering of right-wing influencers and politicians, organised by the Center for Fundamental Rights at a cost of €3 million.

In 2022, the club launched a caucus in Italy whose members include Susanna Ceccardi, an MEP for Lega.

Anti-migrant Sentiment

Forte, the club president, used the gala to call for a third term for Donald Trump, telling the audience that the “New York Young Republican Club is prepared to endorse [him] in 2028.”

Both Forte and Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles, a Republican, also used the stage to call for the deportation of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

“America first means limiting immigration to people who are from compatible nations,” Ogles told the crowd.

Ogles has repeatedly called for investigations into Mamdani’s citizenship — the New York politician is a duel citizen of the U.S. and Uganda — a move called “racist and anti-Muslim” by Democrats and civil rights groups.

The statements were part of a pronounced anti-migrant sentiment at the event.

Forte also warned attendees of an “enemy” who “slanders us in the media, throws wide open our borders, replaces our native population, and wants to take the crown from Lady Liberty and crush it beneath its satanic heel.”

The NYYRC did not respond to a request for comment.

The following individuals and groups did not respond to requests for comment: Stefano Forte, Andy Ogles, Lega, the National Rally, the Center for Fundamental Rights, the Alternative für Deutschland, Markus Frohnmeier, Liuca Toccalini, Petry Bystron, Logan Circle Group, István Kovács, Dovid Holtzman, Susanna Ceccardi, Isabella Tovaglieri, and the American Principles Project.

UPDATE 19/12/25: This story has been updated to include a statement from Fidesz, received after this story’s initial publication, that “there was no participation by Fidesz in this event.”

The post Group Linked to Hungary’s Orban Co-organises Young Republican Gala appeared first on DeSmog.

This post has been syndicated from DeSmog, where it was published under this address.