Unlike the MAGA movement, which is led by a candidate who is defiantly amoral, post-liberalism is steeped in a revolutionary religiosity.
Most Americans haven’t heard of the post-liberal right, the small but influential group of conservative, mostly Catholic men who have declared that liberal democracy, the animating principle of America’s founding, has failed and want to bring about a new social order where there is no separation of church and state and men and a hyperconservative Catholicism reign supreme. They are disdainful of secularism and individual liberty. Just like Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump illustrated during Tuesday night’s debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, these men idolize the authoritarian Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary.
They’re also nostalgic for Spain as it was run by the dictator Franco and see Orbán’s government and Franco’s as potential models for the kind of regime they wish to install in the United States. The group’s political priorities — which include restricting access to contraception and divorce and banning marriage equality and pornography — are wildly unpopular. And yet the Republican nominee for vice president, my former friend JD Vance, is a prominent voice of this fringe movement, as so many of his regrettable podcast interviews have demonstrated.
Do the Catholic zealots not realize that less than 70 years ago most Americans were paranoid about them taking over, reigniting and justifying that fear seems rather stupid. Especially since quite a few more liberal Catholics would throw them under the bus, and the Jesuits would probably smuggle guns against them.
Opus Dei has had a huge influence on the post-liberal right movement. And you can’t get more tone deaf to really anything than Opus Dei. They don’t give a shit about context or history or regional/national concerns. They are the proverbial hammer that sees everything as a nail.
I say the following not for you (the person I’m replying to), but for others who may read this…
Some people refer to the Catholic Church as a cult, but really the church is a broad umbrella of competing subgroups that share common beliefs yet approach most topics with pretty different perspectives (a great example being the more science-based Jesuits versus other anti-science and ultra-superstitious orders).
That said, there are cults within the Catholic Church. And Opus Dei is probably the biggest and most extreme one. They want to impose their fanatical dogma not only on the rest of the church, but also on the world. They are a cancer on global society.
Opus Dei, Southern Baptist evangelicals, Scientologists, Zionist settlers, jihadist Muslims, whatever – all forms of religious fundamentalism are cancer and the theological differences between them are basically irrelevant.