Pro-Trump Catholic Intellectuals Want To Liquidate U.S. Democracy

Zack Beauchamp of Vox has outlined how a specific class of far-right, theocratic, pro-Trump intellectuals has concluded from Republicans' 2022 midterm performance that democracy must be discarded in order to save the country, Matthew Chapman reported for Raw Story.

Photo Insert: The American Conservative's Declan Leary is labeled as a particular element of the New Right: The so-called 'integralists.'

Former President Donald Trump and most of his inner circle at least ostensibly claim to love American democracy, and simply challenge its legitimacy when they lose. But, wrote Beauchamp, even that is no longer the case for some on the right.

"A minority of New Right thinkers responded to defeat by suggesting the electorate is too far gone for conservatives to ever triumph — and even questioning the value of democracy itself," wrote Beauchamp.

"'Democracy did not end slavery, and democracy will not end abortion,” declared Chad Pecknold, a self-described “postliberal” theologian at Catholic University.

“What we’re seeing, through all these arguments, are the fissures splitting the right’s most vibrant intellectual movement — fault lines that could divide conservatism in the coming years."

This view is exemplified by Declan Leary, managing editor of The American Conservative, who argued that Republicans simply didn't go far enough in pushing a platform of illiberalism.

"Leary hails from a particular element of the New Right: The so-called 'integralists,' Catholic arch-conservatives who believe that the United States government should be replaced with a religious Catholic state," wrote Beauchamp.

"Integralists are a part of a broader 'postliberal' trend among right-wing intellectuals that traces the cultural decay of American society back to its ruling liberal political philosophy: the doctrine that government should liberate people to pursue their own visions of the good life.

Liberalism, they argue, promotes licentiousness and a corrosive individualism: It is the root cause of social ills like drug addiction, 'deaths of despair,' and family breakdown."

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