Post by ferris1248 on Sept 15, 2024 7:36:00 GMT -5
You better watch what you wish for.
Sofia Nelson, a lawyer and former Yale Law School classmate of Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, warned on Saturday that the Ohio senator is working to "hijack" former President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement in favor of a far more rigid and orthodox theocracy called post-liberalism.
In an op-ed for MSNBC published Saturday morning, Nelson said that the post-liberal movement, unlike MAGA, seeks to replace existing social and political power structures with orders rooted in conservative Catholic social teachings.
Nelson contends that post-liberalists, like Vance, seek to position themselves within the MAGA movement with the aim of inheriting Trump's political base once he leaves politics. Their goal is to turn the GOP into a pro-theocracy party, Nelson said. The op-ed warns about the danger of a post-liberal rise and the need to counteract it, not just for the sake of defeating Trump, but to maintain the democratic values underpinning U.S. society.
But the ideological overlap between the groups is a shared affinity for authoritarianism," Nelson wrote. "The post-liberal right, which has goals that even MAGA Republicans would find extreme, is attempting to hijack the MAGA movement to push its own agenda."
"Despite the time we spent as friends, I have no real insights (other than political expediency) into what drew him to post-liberal men like the academic Patrick Deneen, columnist Sohrab Ahmari, legal scholar Adrian Vermeule and expat journalist and author Rod Dreher, who was present for Vance's baptism into the Catholic Church in 2019," Nelson wrote. "What I do know is that Vance used to condemn Trump's racism and be empathetic to how such rhetoric made Americans feel unwelcome in their own country. But these men have had an obvious and heartbreaking effect on Vance's worldview."
Nelson said Vance's "obsession" with birth rates and his remarks about childless women reflect his post-liberal belief structure. They also point out that Vance's comments in favor of eliminating "no-fault divorce" drifts further to the right on marriage issues than what is contained in The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 initiative, a political movement led by conservative think tanks that aim to shape the next Republican administration's policies.
"Post-liberalism, unlike MAGA, has no grassroots following. Most Americans aren't Catholic, and most Catholics support the separation of church and state. But post-liberalism, despite its ideological and moral disdain for Trump, needs MAGA, Nelson wrote. "To accomplish any of its goals, it must leech off of a populist movement. The movement needs to exploit Trump's popularity for its own unpopular aims.
www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/jd-vance-working-to-hijack-maga-to-push-theocracy-ex-friend-warns/ar-AA1qAh8X?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=c893b94f77ed4b4e9ba6e580a832afe9&ei=24
Sofia Nelson, a lawyer and former Yale Law School classmate of Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, warned on Saturday that the Ohio senator is working to "hijack" former President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement in favor of a far more rigid and orthodox theocracy called post-liberalism.
In an op-ed for MSNBC published Saturday morning, Nelson said that the post-liberal movement, unlike MAGA, seeks to replace existing social and political power structures with orders rooted in conservative Catholic social teachings.
Nelson contends that post-liberalists, like Vance, seek to position themselves within the MAGA movement with the aim of inheriting Trump's political base once he leaves politics. Their goal is to turn the GOP into a pro-theocracy party, Nelson said. The op-ed warns about the danger of a post-liberal rise and the need to counteract it, not just for the sake of defeating Trump, but to maintain the democratic values underpinning U.S. society.
But the ideological overlap between the groups is a shared affinity for authoritarianism," Nelson wrote. "The post-liberal right, which has goals that even MAGA Republicans would find extreme, is attempting to hijack the MAGA movement to push its own agenda."
"Despite the time we spent as friends, I have no real insights (other than political expediency) into what drew him to post-liberal men like the academic Patrick Deneen, columnist Sohrab Ahmari, legal scholar Adrian Vermeule and expat journalist and author Rod Dreher, who was present for Vance's baptism into the Catholic Church in 2019," Nelson wrote. "What I do know is that Vance used to condemn Trump's racism and be empathetic to how such rhetoric made Americans feel unwelcome in their own country. But these men have had an obvious and heartbreaking effect on Vance's worldview."
Nelson said Vance's "obsession" with birth rates and his remarks about childless women reflect his post-liberal belief structure. They also point out that Vance's comments in favor of eliminating "no-fault divorce" drifts further to the right on marriage issues than what is contained in The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 initiative, a political movement led by conservative think tanks that aim to shape the next Republican administration's policies.
"Post-liberalism, unlike MAGA, has no grassroots following. Most Americans aren't Catholic, and most Catholics support the separation of church and state. But post-liberalism, despite its ideological and moral disdain for Trump, needs MAGA, Nelson wrote. "To accomplish any of its goals, it must leech off of a populist movement. The movement needs to exploit Trump's popularity for its own unpopular aims.
www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/jd-vance-working-to-hijack-maga-to-push-theocracy-ex-friend-warns/ar-AA1qAh8X?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=c893b94f77ed4b4e9ba6e580a832afe9&ei=24
