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Beyond Trumpists and Claremonsters: Forging a Postliberal Consensus?
Type
conference keynote
Date Issued
2023-05-25
Author(s)
Claudia Franziska Brühwiler
Abstract
“2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die.”
Prophecies of doom were nothing new during the 2016 elections, yet this particular line still caught the attention of political observers. While the majority of so-called “movement conservatives” had forged a “Never Trump” alliance, an essay in the Claremont Review of Books ignited a small, but forceful movement of intellectuals endorsing Donald J. Trump. “The Flight 93 Election” (Anton 2016) likened the decision to vote for Trump to the fateful flight on 9/11 and claimed that “movement conservatism” and the GOP in particular had betrayed not only the voters, but also the very ideas they allegedly stood for. The author, Michael Anton, would later continue with a series of articles and books to attack both conservatism and liberalism. He was joined by other so-called “Claremonsters,” i.e., Westcoast Straussians, who built on the writings of Leo Strauss and Harry V. Jaffa to question the legitimacy of the current American regime.
Trump’s defeat and the attack on the Capitol have done little to quieten these voices that are alleging that liberalism is harming the United States, for instance by dividing the country into two warring conceptions of the constitution (Kesler 2021). Most prominently, Patrick J. Deneen, is suggesting the need for a postliberal order, as he sees in liberalism the root of America’s decline and the demise of institutions (Deneen 2018).
This paper will analyze this emerging archipelago of conservative intellectuals propagating a new postliberal order. In a first step, it will outline the different camps of conservatism they stem from, and it will then analyze their critique of liberalism as well as their intellectual roots.
Prophecies of doom were nothing new during the 2016 elections, yet this particular line still caught the attention of political observers. While the majority of so-called “movement conservatives” had forged a “Never Trump” alliance, an essay in the Claremont Review of Books ignited a small, but forceful movement of intellectuals endorsing Donald J. Trump. “The Flight 93 Election” (Anton 2016) likened the decision to vote for Trump to the fateful flight on 9/11 and claimed that “movement conservatism” and the GOP in particular had betrayed not only the voters, but also the very ideas they allegedly stood for. The author, Michael Anton, would later continue with a series of articles and books to attack both conservatism and liberalism. He was joined by other so-called “Claremonsters,” i.e., Westcoast Straussians, who built on the writings of Leo Strauss and Harry V. Jaffa to question the legitimacy of the current American regime.
Trump’s defeat and the attack on the Capitol have done little to quieten these voices that are alleging that liberalism is harming the United States, for instance by dividing the country into two warring conceptions of the constitution (Kesler 2021). Most prominently, Patrick J. Deneen, is suggesting the need for a postliberal order, as he sees in liberalism the root of America’s decline and the demise of institutions (Deneen 2018).
This paper will analyze this emerging archipelago of conservative intellectuals propagating a new postliberal order. In a first step, it will outline the different camps of conservatism they stem from, and it will then analyze their critique of liberalism as well as their intellectual roots.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Event Title
Sources of Legitimacy: Rethinking US-American Democracy
Event Location
John F. Kennedy Institute Berlin
Event Date
25-27 May 2023
Division(s)
File(s)