An alternative thought
During these presidential elections, the advent of future Vice-President James David Vance was also notable for Catholics. This 40-year-old man, born into a Protestant family, converted to Catholicism five years ago. Single-handedly, he embodies the emergence of a new Catholic guard among American conservative intellectuals.
“Like other highly educated conservatives, Vance’s conversion is the result of an intellectual journeynotes Jean-Benoît Poulle, normalien and historian at the Sorbonne. This young guard is characterized by a rejection of economic and moral liberalism, guilty, in their eyes, of having atomized communities through individualism and the materialism that results from it. As Vance himself recounted, these conservatives found in Catholic doctrine an alternative thought to liberalism, more historical and articulate than what they could unearth in Protestant evangelicalism, for example. Not everyone converted, but they relied on Catholic authors to think about their “post-liberalism”. The French René Girard, Pierre Manent or Rémi Brague, the American political scientist Patrick Deneen, the works of Thomas Aquinas or Saint Augustine are in their libraries. In their eyes, this thinking which seeks the “common good” and is based on “natural law” allows the emergence of a “we”, like tradition or patriotism.
Without always aligning with the Vatican (notably on the migration issue), this “post-liberal” and “national conservative” guard, close to Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, encourages a traditional vision of the family, pronatalist and social policies. towards the working classes, a conservative conception of education, and criticizes globalization and its international bodies. In this regard, the cohabitation between Trump and Vance will be interesting to observe. The latter is not as pro-business as his future president, nor as libertarian as certain personalities around him. “Vance and his people, however, have bet on the winning horse: Donald Trump with whom they share societal struggles, his foreign policy, and whose ideological plasticity they know. So they hope to influence him.”notes Jean-Benoît Poulle.
Who is JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate and potential future vice president?
European doubts
In Europe, the Catholic world is carefully observing the rise of such personalities, some rejoicing in whole or in part, others fearing the authoritarian or nationalist shifts of such “post-liberal” thinking.
“It is not because we criticize liberalism that we inevitably fall into the camp of the extreme rightconcludes Jean-Benoît Poulle. However, certain aspects of Vance’s thinking point to the far right, while some of his critiques of neoliberalism, particularly on a social level, can be shared on the left. If it is far right, it is not that of the past. Its positioning is more complex.”
In Rome, where the “Vance” sensibility is not exactly that which sets the tone under Pope Francis, the Holy See mischievously wished “good luck” and “much wisdom” to Donald Trump. For his part, the American episcopate also congratulated him, insisting that he was concerned “of those who are outside our borders”.
