"J.D. Vance's designation as Donald Trump's running mate elevates to national prominence a political movement that has been brewing on the right for several years. Mr. Vance identifies himself as a member of the "postliberal" right, the first Republican candidate for such a high office to do so.
The significance of Mr. Vance's endorsement of postliberalism goes beyond his role as Mr. Trump's pick for vice president. Many observers anticipate that Mr. Vance will become the standard-bearer for the Trump movement after the next presidential term. He is viewed not only as a politician but as an intellectual, capable of articulating a governing philosophy. Steve Bannon went so far as to describe Mr. Vance as, in Politico's paraphrase, "the St. Paul to Trump's Jesus -- the zealous convert who spreads the gospel of Trumpism further than Trump himself."
Postliberalism isn't a political platform or set of policy prescriptions. It's a philosophical outlook, shaped by current philosophers -- the likes of Patrick Deneen, D.C. Schindler, Adrian Vermeule and Peter Leithart -- who are building on the work of 20th-century thinkers such as Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Philip Rieff, J.B. Schneewind and Pierre Manent. Many postliberals are Catholic, as is Mr. Vance.
Postliberalism is new and still evolving. Its clearest articulation is in Mr. Deneen's 2023 book, "Regime Change," which calls for the replacement of political elites with new ones more closely aligned with the interests of the people. Those new elites will, the hope goes, be guided by a "common good" conservatism focused on virtue, family and community.
Mr. Vance would fit that elite mold. A native of Appalachia and graduate of Yale Law School, he's a true rags-to-riches American success story, obviously concerned with the problems faced by the communities he emerged from and lovingly described in his 2016 memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy." Nearly all elites now claim to speak for the people, though, so if the new postliberal elites are to be differentiated from the old liberal elites, it would have to be by the actual positions they espouse.
On that score, it's helpful to see today's postliberalism as an extension of the communitarianism of the latter half of the 20th century. Proponents of that include Messrs. Taylor and MacIntyre and others mentioned above, whose concerns were most famously captured by Robert Putnam's book "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community" (2000). Mr. Putnam used the downfall of bowling leagues to exemplify the breakdown of American community. That same breakdown is a major theme of "Hillbilly Elegy."
The postliberals share the concern with building strong communities, which helps explain their interest not only in traditional marriage and family but also in protective economic policies that may help to restore communities torn apart by the offshoring of manufacturing jobs.
The postliberals also add philosophical heft to Mr. Trump's attack on the "deep state," since the administrative state is viewed as taking from citizens the prerogative to work together to govern themselves. When Mr. Vance was asked to explain his suggestion that "a second-term President Trump should summarily fire a significant number of midlevel federal bureaucrats," he said: "For me, this is not a limited-government thing -- this is a democracy thing. Like, you need the bureaucracy to be responsive to the elected branches of government." The postliberal commitment to community includes the commitment to communities governing themselves.
None of these positions necessarily fall outside mainstream Trump conservatism. So why would Mr. Vance and others adopt the term "postliberal"?
The "post" in postliberal comes in part from the claim that today's social and moral problems are the inevitable result of the liberal regime set up by the Founding Fathers. Some postliberals, including Mr. Schindler, argue that the founders made a critical philosophical mistake: Baked into the American system is a wrong-headed rejection of an objective standard for goodness, truth and beauty. Postliberals therefore talk openly about the need to create a new blueprint for an American society centered on virtue and the common good. In this they differ markedly from other Trump-era Republicans.
Whether the philosophy that guided the American founding actually undermined objective morality, though, is disputed, so it's unclear how different the new postliberal blueprint would be from the original American one. To that point, the postliberal criticism of the founding doesn't necessarily amount to a desire to overturn political institutions and traditions. As Mr. Deneen put it, in the envisioned "postliberal order," the "existing political forms can remain in place" as long as they're informed by a healthier "ethos."
Some of the left's criticisms of Mr. Vance actually point to his commitment to founding principles. Politico's Ian Ward opined in March that Mr. Vance is "prepared to transform his country's entire constitutional system" in his commitment to "drain the swamp." Since paring down the administrative state would arguably bring American politics into closer alignment with the founders, Mr. Vance's commitment to doing so might make him a reformer rather than a revolutionary.
The postliberal movement is new, and its final shape is unclear. But those interested in the future of the American right will want to closely chart its direction.
---
Mr. Zorzi is an assistant professor of theology and philosophy at Patrick Henry College and a visiting fellow with the Mercatus Center." [1]
1. J.D. Vance and the Rise of 'Postliberalism'. Zorzi, Graedon H. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 17 July 2024: A.17.
