A Genealogical Critique of the Postliberal Right in the United States: Reno, Spengler, Schmitt, Evola, Raspail and All the Vice President’s Men

Over the last decade, the ideological family of postliberalism has become an incredibly potent political force in the United States. R.R. Reno, editor of First Things and a National Conservative (which is a form of postliberalism), contends in his book, Return of the Strong Gods, that postliberalism developed out of a dissatisfaction with the postwar liberal consensus and can serve as a third way between liberalism and the “dark gods” of fascism and racism. This claim merits evaluation; given postliberalism’s influence on prominent figures in the second Trump Administration, including Vice President JD Vance, uncovering the origin of the ideology provides needed context for the modern political landscape. This paper uses a genealogical critique to demonstrate postliberalism’s connection to its predecessor, ethnically-based classical nationalism in the vein of Oswald Spengler and Carl Schmitt. This understanding reveals postliberalism’s failure to properly acknowledge and shake off the sins of its ideological predecessors, which is essential for understanding the shift of the United States’s political right wing on issues including the power of the executive, identity, ethnicity and religion.