on looking the liberal part, past & present
https://pdbowman.studio/briefs/14-sep-2025-fashion-liberal-society-political-community-derek-guy-toby-buckle/

#DerekGuy #DieWorkWear #suit #suitcoat #menswear #clothingStyle #style #TobyBuckle #PoliticalPhilosophy #PoliticalPhilosophyPodcast #liberal #liberalism #postliberal #postliberalism #communitarianism #fascism

Ugh 😩

JD Vance and the Rise of the ‘Postliberal’ Catholics

When #JDVance converted to Catholicism 5 years ago, he came into contact with what the Associated Press recently called “a #Catholic intellectual movement, viewed by some critics as having reactionary or authoritarian leanings.”

Vance has called himself a “#postliberal” Catholic in the past and has endorsed policies and tactics favored by adherents of the label, such as purging the administrative state and his rhetorical promotion of “pro-family” policy (His actual legislative record on this subject leaves much to be desired)

#Christiannationalism
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/j-d-vance-and-the-rise-of-the-postliberal-catholics.html

The single most troubling thing about Senator JD Vance
— his bizarre understanding of the work of J.R.R. Tolkien notwithstanding
— is his close relationship with some of the #most #extreme #elements of the American right.

When asked to explain his worldview, Vance has cited his former boss, #Peter #Thiel,
the billionaire venture capitalist who has written passionately against democracy
(“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”),
and #Curtis #Yarvin, a software developer turned blogger and provocateur
who believes the United States should transition to monarchy
(“If Americans want to change their government, they’re going to have to get over their dictator phobia”).

Yarvin has also written favorably of human bondage
(slavery, he once wrote, “is a natural human relationship”)
and wondered aloud if apartheid wasn’t better for Black South Africans.

While Vance’s admirers see him as a uniquely intellectual presence in American politics
— a thinker as much as a politician
— his right-wing, #authoritarian views are largely derivative of the views and preoccupations of Thiel, Yarvin and their community of “#postliberal” ideologues and #reactionary venture capitalists.

Take Vance’s view that the United States is in a period of Romanesque decline.
“We are in a late republican period,” Vance said on a podcast in 2021.

⚠️“If we’re going to push back against it, we’re going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there,
and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.”

Compare this to 👉Thiel’s view that “liberalism” and “democracy” are “#exhausted,”
and that to restore the nation
“we have to ask some questions very far outside the Overton window.”

❓Is this a call for new tax cuts, or does it represent a fundamental hostility toward popular constitutional government in the United States?❓

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/10/opinion/jd-vance-right-wing-intellectual.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

After #Virtue Came #Strongman #Politics

https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/dispatch-faith/after-virtue-came-strongman-politics/

How #postliberal #Christians came to embrace a #political movement at odds with their #values.

Post-liberalism is an echo of the authoritarian status quo, a blind alley for seekers of liberation with or without liberalism.

Read more at my blog: https://www.adamasnemesis.com/2021/07/12/post-liberalism-an-echo-not-a-choice/

This post's featured image is "Echo" (1874) by Alexandre Cabanal.

#politics #freedom #conservatism #conservative #conservativemovement #libertarianism #libertarian #libertarianmovement #postliberalism #postliberal #liberalism #blog