What JD Vance’s Ideology Says About the Trump Movement
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What to make of JD Vance, this post -liberal? People familiar with JD Vance, most people familiar obviously with his memoir and also the movie that was done about that was excellent, by the way. He identifies himself as a post
And in essence, he’d be the first first Republican candidate running for high office to actually identify as a post liberal. What does that mean? It was a great article column written today by a professor, Graydon Zorzi, who is a professor of theology, a professor of philosophy as well.
And he does a really good job explaining what the position is of post liberals. Basically, what is JD Vance all about? Again, I like you to listen to this and rather than let the media again, because they’re to come up with their narrative and try to try to frame JD Vance in a certain light. It’s not it’s not a political platform. It’s not a set of
policy prescriptions. It’s more of a philosophical outlook. And it’s shaped by some current philosophers, Patrick Deneen, DC Schindler, Adrian Vermeule, Peter Leidhart, and they’re building on the work of some other 20th century thinkers as Charles Taylor and J .B. Sheenwein and others. Most of these post liberals are Catholic and JD Vance is Catholic as
Post -liberalism, Zorsky writes, is it’s new and evolving. Its clearest articulation is in Mr. Dean’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 is out there, will be guided by a common good.
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conservatism focused on virtue, family and community. again, if not familiar with JD Vance’s story, I’m not gonna go over it again. You can take a look and like I said, watch the movie or read his memoir, okay? It is a rags to riches, true American success story. And again, you look at his background, you’re gonna see why Vance
concerned with the problems that are faced by so many communities here in the United States, in particular one that he came from. All politicians. yeah, we’re speaking. We’re for the people. The post liberals out there, they want to replace it. It’s actually that the positions that they are putting forward. Post liberalism.
as an extension of the computer, they call it a communitarianism of the latter half of the 20th century. And there was actually a book by Robert Putnam came out in 2000, and the title of book was Bowling Alone, the collapse and revival of American community. And he basically used the downfall of bowling leagues to exemplify the breakdown of American community.
And that same breakdown is a major theme of Hill, Billy, LJ, obviously. And again, we’re starting to see it also now in the, kind of interesting, you see it, the overwhelmingly rise popularity of country music here in this country and the lyrics and the things that they’re singing about and how mainstream.
it has become, which again, I find fascinating. Post -liberals 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 various different jobs. Again, they are very much after the deep state like Donald
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The administrative state is viewed as taking away from citizens their prerogative to work together and govern themselves. Something that, again, we’ve railed about for very long time here on the program. When Mr. Vance was asked to explain a suggestion that a second term President Trump should summarily fire a significant number of mid -level 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 post -liberal commitment to community includes the commitment to communities governing themselves. And again, I mention this here on the program, the bubble that I currently live in. Again, I love my community here. I do. And also,
Again, I call the bubble that I grew up in, tight knit community and getting back to that type of feel for the country. Anyway, let’s go on here. The Zorsi goes on as the post and post liberal comes in part from the claim that today’s social and moral problems are the result of the liberal regime set up by the founding fathers.
Some post liberals argue that the founders made a critical philosophical mistake. Okay, they say baked into the American system is a wrongheaded rejection of an objective standard for goodness, truth and beauty. Post liberals therefore talk openly about the need to create a new blueprint for an American society centered on virtue and the common good. And this they differ markedly from other Trump era Republicans.
Again, I don’t know if the founders, I can’t say the founders screwed up on that. I think the founders maybe didn’t think we’d get off the beaten track to the degree that we have. You read some of the writings, the founders, I think that they fully understood that you needed a moral and educated populace for this country to work.
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Whether the philosophy that guided the American founding actually undermined objective morality, though, is disputed. So it’s unclear how different the new post -liberal blueprint would be from the original American one. To that point, the post -liberal criticism of the founding doesn’t necessarily amount to a desire to overturn political institutions and traditions. As Mr. Dean put it, in the envisioned post -liberal order, the existing political forms can remain in place as long as they are informed by a healthier
Ethos. I don’t have any problem with that. Do you? You don’t think that we need a healthier ethos here in this country? And actually, some of the criticisms from the left. You got Politico’s Ian Ward saying that Mr. Vance is prepared to transform his country’s entire constitutional system and his commitment to drain the swamp.
because paring down the administrative state would bring American politics closer in alignment with the founders. That’s what I think. Founders didn’t want this. We had a 10th Amendment, the Constitution. This doesn’t make them a revolutionary. To me, it makes them a bit of a reformer. Again, don’t let the media take the ball and run like they always do. Oftentimes, too many people out there
Again, allow the media to do their thinking for them. Okay? Do your own homework. Do your own homework when it comes to these candidates and whatever they stand on. Okay? Stop listening to these fools out there. Threats of democracy! Threats of democracy! Enough. I mean, it’s moronic. It really is. Watchdog on wallstreet .com.
