Why Postliberalism Failed

James was very delayed in uploading this discussion that breaks from our usual subject area and format, but he decided that it was still worth uploading. Mind you, the original recording date was September 12, so the discussion is more about the initial response than the Late Night stuff or the Memorial Service.

Tom and James interview Joel Berry, Managing Editor of the Christian satire website Babylon Bee, about his experiences dealing with postliberalism and Christian Nationalism on the Protestant side of American politics. We also talk about the dance between being funny and being political and also a bit on the Parable of the Sower as relevant to the politics of the monent.

Tom and James talk to Victoria Holmes, who works on her own video series on Catholicism and politics here on YouTube. She also works at the The Dispatch an a multimedia editor. She talks to Tom and James about how bad postliberalism has become among people her age and what she hopes to do about it.

James and Tom talk about Father Josef Tiso, who was dictator of Slovakia during the Second World War. During those years, Slovakia was a client state of the Third Reich, and Tiso was a wily, ambitious Catholic priest who saw to the deaths of between 50,000 - 95,000 Jews until his hanging in 1946. Afterwards, Slovakia, like Croatia, managed to endure the worst of both worlds, first fascism and then communism.

Tom tackles the nuances of Catholic post-liberalism, spotlighting Patrick Deneen as a central figure. He explores Deneen's critiques of liberalism, including its historical roots and social contract implications. The discussion dives into Deneen's views on divorce, culture, and localism while contrasting his perspectives with integralists. Tom also questions the weight of Deneen's critiques of capitalism and his ambivalence towards the U.S. Constitution. As the conversation unfolds, it reveals surprising intellectual admirations that shape Deneen's radicalization journey.

After edgy social media poaster Pinesap debated the virtues of Francisco Franco in a debate with Mehdi Hasan, Franco Appreciation Content resurfaced. When Tom and James remarked on Franco's atrocities, we were once again visited with spurious claims about Franco's virtues as a pious Catholic leader who restored Spain. He was nothing of the sort, as Tom and James detail.

After several requests, Tom and I decided to do an episode on the worst example of postliberal governance, the Independent State of Croatia, operated by Ante Pavelic and the Ustase. It's a bit of a downer of an episode but important for people who take the rise of integralism and postliberalism seriously.

We review some of the major developments since we wrapped recording our first season. We cover the election of noted postliberal JD Vance to the Vice Presidency, the likely ouster of Viktor Orbán, the papacy of Pope Leo XIV, and other developments.

Thomas was eager to talk about Vichy after having completed the section on Vichy in our book. Vichy is important because of how its brief existence illustrated the inhumanity of postliberal ideas within the right wing Catholic culture that had fostered them. We are a little harried because Thomas was on the road and James having no idea what day it was.

Tom and James speak with Dr. H. David Baer (Texas Lutheran) about Englebert Dolfuss and the rise of Austrofascism of the 1930s and its influence on contemporary postliberals. They then pivot to discussing the centralized of Viktor Orbán to postliberal ideas and institutions.