Unlike the MAGA movement, which is led by a candidate who is defiantly amoral, post-liberalism is steeped in a revolutionary religiosity.

Most Americans haven’t heard of the post-liberal right, the small but influential group of conservative, mostly Catholic men who have declared that liberal democracy, the animating principle of America’s founding, has failed and want to bring about a new social order where there is no separation of church and state and men and a hyperconservative Catholicism reign supreme. They are disdainful of secularism and individual liberty. Just like Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump illustrated during Tuesday night’s debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, these men idolize the authoritarian Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary.

They’re also nostalgic for Spain as it was run by the dictator Franco and see Orbán’s government and Franco’s as potential models for the kind of regime they wish to install in the United States. The group’s political priorities — which include restricting access to contraception and divorce and banning marriage equality and pornography — are wildly unpopular. And yet the Republican nominee for vice president, my former friend JD Vance, is a prominent voice of this fringe movement, as so many of his regrettable podcast interviews have demonstrated.

  • geekwithsoul@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    edit-2
    5 days ago

    While I don’t have a problem with this article in particular, the MBFC bot is still not making a distinction between opinion pieces and news articles which is problematic.

      • geekwithsoul@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        5 days ago

        Too true. I have however noted to the admins/makers of the bot that links like this (also the New York Times and others) often include “/opinion/“ in the URL so it should be fairly straightforward and easy to at least address those. Low hanging fruit and all that.