In less than two months, some 400 million Europeans will choose 720 lawmakers in the European Parliament, with far-reaching implications for everything from transgender issues to the war in Ukraine. With the possible exception of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, no European leader is more cognizant of just how consequential the election is than Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban — and he will in coming weeks be riding a wave of popular support.

The wave started when Mr. Orban headlined at Brussels a gathering of conservative leaders that had initially been canceled. The momentum carried over to last week’s CPAC Hungary. At Budapest Mr. Orban called out the failures of the “progressive–liberal hegemony,” not only the Brussels bureaucracy but certain American efforts to efface Donald Trump. More startlingly, He compared progressive tactics to Communism.

“Just as the Communists did in the past, now progressives take five steps to turn state institutions into tools of oppression,” Mr. Orban told a packed conference. Its scheduled participants included Senator Mullin of Oklahoma and Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona. Fellow “woke busters” in attendance were Australian Tony Abbott, a former Australian premier, and the head of the Dutch Party for Freedom, Geert Wilders.

“The first step,” he said, “is to redefine what is normal, so that it means the opposite: war is peace, migration is resources; then, they begin spreading the ‘inverted normality’ with state tools; then they identify those who hold ‘dangerous views’ as a security risks, inciting the liberal press and activists against them; and finally, state institutions also spring into action.”

Mr. Orban said that not only is that what European Union officials in Brussels are seeking to do with Hungary, but also what progressives are trying to do with conservatives in liberal European capitals and in America, where, as he put it, progressives seek to use the court system to “wipe Donald Trump off the ballot.”

As if to underscore the comity between Messrs. Orban and Trump, the former president took some time from his judicial travails to address the CPAC Hungary audience by video on Friday. Ultimately though it is the European election fast approaching in June that the unapologetically nationalist Hungarian leader has in his sights.

Mr. Orban himself is not a candidate — he has a country to run, after all. If, though his Fidesz party joins up with the European Conservatives and Reformists party, or  ECR, it will significantly boost conservatives’ standing in the European Parliament. The ECR, it’s worth recalling, is led by the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.

The Hungarian and Italian politicians are said to have a good personal friendship and strong working relationship. One of the things that differentiates them on the international scene is that Mr. Orban is closer to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin — Ms. Meloni is by contrast seen as one of Europe’s staunchest allies of Ukraine.

While Ms. Meloni has disproved critics who feared that she would prove a threat to Italy’s democratic norms, Mr. Orban has earned and even embraced a reputation for illiberalism. Freedom House currently designates Hungary a “partly free” country. 

As Mr. Orban sees it, though, conservatism is a unifying force anchored in reality, not one that risks being reimagined by the so-called liberal “wokerati.” A strong Europe-wide conservative showing in June would have the knock-on effect of consolidating the standing of Ms. Meloni’s coalition at Rome, where the left-wing parties have been carping about some of the government’s policies more loudly recently.

Mr. Orban’s remarks were meant to resonate with a growing share of the European public that feels disillusioned by what are perceived to be Brussels elites out of touch with the concerns of everyday citizens. 

“The world order built on progressive-liberal hegemony has failed because it brought wars, chaos, unrest, collapsing economies, and turmoil to the world,” he said.  When he listens to “clumsy liberal leaders,” he said,  “I think that they know less about world peace than contestants in a beauty pageant.”

One of those “clumsy” liberal leaders who was not mentioned by name is the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, with whom Mr. Orban has frequently locked horns. He is not the only one to do so. President Macron is favoring a former Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, over another term for Ms. von der Leyen, who is widely perceived as an ineffectual leader.

As if to underscore that, a German liberal candidate for the EU’s top job, a defense expert named Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, recently stated that “under Ursula von der Leyen’s Green Deal, the EU has been shot back into the climate protection Middle Ages, and a confusing number of sector regulations has led to an unprecedented increase in European bureaucracy.”

Ms. Strack-Zimmermann was one eight candidates for the EU commissioner remit — Ms. von der Leyen included — squaring off at the Maastricht Debate on Monday. 

Prior to  that debate, another candidate, Anders Vistisen of the conservative Identity and Democracy party, said on social media that he would  “tell the truth about the EU’s disaster course directly to Ursula and the rest of the EU!”

As for Mr. Orban, he has often lashed out at Ms. von der Leyen for her own rebuking of Hungary for its defense of things like traditional family values over a reflexive embrace of the radical transgender ideology.

Not surprisingly then, the EU elections represent for him a chance to ring in an “era of sovereignty” that could be modeled on Hungary, which he described as a “conservative island.” What appears to be taking shape is a more conservative continent.