For over a decade, Patrick Deneen has consistently questioned whether American liberal democracy has proven itself unsustainable, has therefore failed, and thus deserves to die. Regime Change begins by assuming that those questions had been decisively answered in the affirmative. Having declared liberalism over, Regime Change dictates “What is to be Done.” His answer places himself squarely in the camp of common-good conservatives, who would remake the nation, and possibly human nature, in their own image. 

First, a definition of terms is in order. Deneen’s “regime” in Regime Change refers to a form of government and its accompanying way of thinking, or ethos, that generates a particular form and way of life.  His term “liberalism” in Why Liberalism Failed refers to our current political and social regime. Liberalism is our form of government, created by the founding generation and based upon a primarily Lockean conception of liberty and nature. Once created, this form of government generated corresponding beliefs, institutions, and practices conciliatory to that form. The terms “liberalism” and “liberal” as Deneen employs them do not refer to a political party or a narrowly left-leaning ideology. What Deneen calls “liberalism,” I call our constitutional republic.

Liberalism died, Deneen argues, because its successes make all things worse for humans. Indeed, Deneen argues, liberalism’s single-minded dedication to progress distorts or destroys the institutions most likely to facilitate human flourishing. These supporting civic and social institutions were at one time compatible with America’s republic, as observed by Alexis de Tocqueville, but now are virtually destroyed. The unbounded selfish pursuit of Lockean liberty has only degraded the human soul. He laments the results we witness—rule by hypocritical elites (the few) and the resentful populists and Trumpians (the many) who oppose them. We find ourselves embroiled in a cold civil war periodically erupting in violence.

Keeping in mind Deneen’s idiosyncratic definition of liberalism, Regime Change posits “the peaceful but vigorous overthrow of a corrupt and corrupting liberal ruling class,” a goal that will charm many among our disaffected, fatigued, and even resentful electorate. However, Deneen’s idealized “postliberal order” is admittedly far more revolutionary. While not advocating for a bloody revolution—”existing political forms can remain in place”—Deneen posits his own “fundamentally different ethos” that must inform those institutions and the managers who run them. Deneen describes his new ethos as essentially “a renewal of the Christian roots of our civilization” and a “public Christian culture.”

There are two fundamental problems with Regime Change. First, our current ailment is not due to internal flaws of liberalism, nor has liberalism failed. This is not to deny liberalism’s flaws. Deneen is at his best when he is illuminating liberalism’s inadvertent errors and diagnosing the symptoms of the disease we suffer. His account, however, misses the core ailment. The crisis of our time is precisely not the self-actualization of liberalism, but our digression away from the core precepts of our constitutional order, which I will call below “The American Proposition.”

The death of liberalism only occurs if one accepts Deneen’s particular view of liberalism as a progressivism of the left and right. This account ignores the tremendous successes of the regime, its moral foundations grounded in the Law of Nature and Nature’s God, its understanding of human nature that is broad enough to include both the Lockean and religious perspectives, and our institutions’ ability to correct past errors. Because Deneen’s forecast is based on an overly narrow conception of liberalism, his diagnosis of today’s malaise is incomplete. Might our polarization stem from ignorance of these foundations?

Second, even if liberalism had decisively failed, the regime change Deneen seeks is impracticable. Infusing a superficial version of our current regime with his new ethos of a public Christian culture might inadvertently exacerbate the polarization that he hopes to solve. Capitalizing on the resentments of the current populist uprising, Deneen recommends creating a new elite to direct and habituate the masses. It is unclear how this would or could happen in practice.  This effort would likely inflame the passions of both rightwing populists and leftwing identity activists alike, further polarizing the citizenry, discouraging leaders from compromise, and alienating the people from its government.

It is not clear why it would be desirable to maintain these institutions built upon an unsustainable liberal ideology. And yet, this is what Deneen explicitly aims to do.  A more realistic and effective way to cure the ailments of our current system is precisely to revive the sick body politic, not to destroy it.

Is Liberalism Dead, or Only Mostly Dead?

Deneen’s thesis that liberalism is dead and has brought about its own undoing is appealing. Public trust in our political institutions is disintegrating. Civility has been killed by social media, Twitter, and the election of Donald Trump. Average citizens self-censor or silence themselves out of fear of job loss or cancellation. Americans are functionally literate, but culturally and civically illiterate. In sum, the nation has lost the ties that bind.

Deneen captures the frustrations of the moment; however, he misidentifies the root cause of our ailment. The problem is not that the fundamentals of liberalism are wrong, but that we are no longer adhering to them. As the late, great Peter Lawler suggested, Deneen may exaggerate liberalism’s nihilistic tendencies—perhaps because he hopes to exacerbate liberalism’s demise.

In a nutshell, Deneen argues that liberalism has undermined itself as a social, economic, and political project. This death, he argues, is in part owing to the rise of a permanent and hypocritical elite and in part owing to the erosion of the “guardrails” that moderate the desires and actions of the many. Specifically, liberalism’s adoption of an unbounded conception of individual self-creative liberty has eroded the family, religious belief, churches, and schools. These non-governmental institutions and civic associations are needed to facilitate true human flourishing. What’s left after liberalism’s dismantling is a hypocritical elite, out of touch with the populace and seeking its own aggrandizement, and a disaffected citizenry.  

Liberalism, in Deneen’s telling, is merely a form of progressivism. There are three kinds, each of which widens the tension between the so-called “elites,” those who hold power, and the “many,” those governed by that power. Classical liberalism (represented by John Locke) favors progressivism towards economic liberty and “selfish individualism.” Progressive liberalism (embodied by those like John Stuart Mill) sees freedom as a liberation from “the bonds of tradition, custom, and stability” and seeks to transform society morally. The Progressivism of the People (Marx) rejects economic inequality and seeks its own truer equality. Ultimately, Deneen argues, these three progressivisms dismantle themselves by widening the gulf between the few and the many. Moreover, each embraces an open-ended notion of liberty that is ultimately nihilistic, failing to direct the passions of individuals in the proper direction.

Deneen rejects the extensive freedoms permitted by these progressivisms because they have weakened the Christian social state and thereby degraded us. He rejects their shallow conception of liberty in favor of an ethos that could uplift ordinary citizens toward a higher sense of human fulfillment. Deneen rejects liberalism in favor of an ethos that could allow the creation of a truly common good.

Deneen’s depiction of classical liberalism, however, is too narrow. America’s constitutional republic, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, does not embrace a purely Lockean or progressive notion of economic individualism.  William Thro and I argue that our founding philosophy, or what we call the “American Proposition” is broad enough to include moral ends consistent with Lockean and religious perspectives. The Declaration derives our rights and responsibilities from both “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” and  appeals to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.”

Thro and I sum up the precepts derived from these documents as follows:

WE THE PEOPLE CONSENT TO SECURE OUR EQUAL UNALIENABLE RIGHTS THROUGH A CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT DESIGNED TO CONTROL OUR IMPERFECT LEADERS AND OUR IMPERFECT SELVES.

Together these ideas define both the necessary moral ends of government and the necessary means by which those ends are to be secured. We secure our God-given and/or Nature-given unalienable rights by creating a constitutional charter to control our imperfect leaders as well as the governed. We confine everyone to the proper moral ends (equal protection of unalienable rights of all) only through legitimate legal and constitutional means. Persons of faith might pursue different ends from secularists, but they unite in the morality that each of us is entitled to pursue our own ends.

I agree with Deneen that a purely Lockean project cannot satisfy the higher elements of human longing. But, the America Experiment never was a purely Lockean project. Rather, it was the result of compromise among divergent voices. As John Adams notes, some of those who broke from Great Britain did so due to “religious sentiments,” while others “thought less about religion and conscience,” but rebelled for rational or philosophic reasons. Moreover, the Lockean respect for the unalienable rights may not be the peak moral end, but it is in itself a moral end in that it requires each of us to afford the proper respect to one another. And finally, our constitutional order does permit the pursuit of the truly beautiful and worthy things in life (including the pursuit of faith), even as it makes such a pursuit more challenging. The question is whether Deneen’s perspective can permit the Lockean to pursue the ends he or she seeks.

The conception of human nature undergirding our constitutional system is broad enough to include both the religious and the Lockean secular views of liberalism. Peter Lawler explains, “America at its best is a kind of genuine compromise between wholly Lockean and Christian (meaning Puritan, Calvinist, Augustinian, Protestant) views of who we are.”

Considering this broadened understanding of classical liberalism, a simpler explanation for today’s divide emerges. Twenty-first-century America is a house divided—not over policy, not over which elite is best, but over the worth of the entire American project. We are divided between adherents to irreconcilable worldviews—that of the classical liberal (to use Deneen’s term) or the “True Constitutionalists” (Thro’s and my preferred term) versus “Anti-liberals” or “Rejectionists,” on both the left and the right. Thro and I call those who understand and seek to perpetuate the American Proposition’s moral ends and the means of preserving them as “True Constitutionalists.” Thro and I describe those who reject the American Proposition—either its moral principles or the institutional means of defending them, or both—as “Rejectionists.”  By this account, Deneen is a rightwing Rejectionist.

Our crisis is a battle between those (on the left, in the middle, and on the right) who would perpetuate America’s constitutional republic, and leftwing and rightwing advocates who seek to undermine and replace it. Deneen accurately characterizes our foundational divide over “the nature of our regime.” He sees that we are no longer liberals versus conservatives or Republicans against Democrats. He describes our predicament as a “civil war” in which each side is “thoroughly invested in building up the existential threat posed by its opponent.” He is correct.

Today, significant portions of Americans, including “elites” at the highest levels of government, are increasingly and quite brazenly disregarding the law, that is, violating the guardrails required by the America Proposition. Others reject the moral ends or claim that they were lies. As a result, citizens’ attachment to our republic is suffering. This is why we are so bitterly divided, why we are unable to compromise, and why our government is so ineffective. Each side knows the other will flout the law when they seize power. The growing power and influence of the Rejectionist ideology is the crisis of our time, not the death of liberalism, per se.  Liberalism has not failed, nor is it dead, but it is at a crossroads.

Regime Change or Rededication

In the book’s final section titled “What is to be done,” Deneen posits the need to cultivate “a new elite” who “use political power to alter, transform, or uproot an otherwise hostile anti-culture that is today dominated by the progressives on both the right and the left.” This “new aristoi” will elevate the “lives, aspirations and vision of ordinary people.” His common-good conservatism is not destructive, he argues, but “positive and hopeful.”

Deneen offers a more robust understanding of human nature than John Locke’s. Deneen, inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville, understands the human longing for the “ infinite, the non-material and the beautiful.” Deneen also recognizes that these goods can often be cultivated by the institutions that modern liberalism is eroding—the family and religion, for example. However, in seeking to uplift the many toward the possibility of human flourishing, he temporarily forgets an element of human nature that undermines his very solution. Humans are imperfect.

The design of our constitutional republic affirms the limitations and promise of human nature. Humans possess the ability to identify “self-evident truths,” to agree to protect them equally, as well as the capacity to create a government capable of protecting our mutual rights. However, human history is also replete with failures because human beings are sinful (as described by persons of faith) and flawed (as described by secularists). These imperfections explain why our uniquely designed Constitution—with federalism, decentralized separated powers, checks and balances, a Bill of Rights, and an independent judiciary—is inseparable from the need to serve our first moral precept. These guardrails limit those who govern.

But the public must also be moderated. We the People do not always know what is best for our society because we will at times prefer our private interests to the common good. For this reason, our Constitution cannot be based on unrestricted popular whims, or popular sovereignty, or attempts to establish a “new aristoi,” which opens the door for anyone to establish their own visions of such an aristoi. Any of these arrangements would allow a dangerous majority to restrict or oppress a minority group or individual. As he faced the secession crisis, Lincoln profoundly explained, “A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks, and limitations, and always changing easily, with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people.”

Deneen’s postliberal order embraces the need to moderate, train, and uplift the many, but who will moderate, uplift, and train the aristoi when they fall into error, as they inevitably will? Deneen’s regime change fails to provide adequate guardrails for them. Moreover, to what extent will the superficial maintenance of our liberal institutions dismantle the guardrails that do exist? While his common-good conservatism does not advocate physical rebellion (as did Marx), it explicitly circumvents constitutional and legal norms, and explicitly calls for “Machiavellian means” to produce the ends he seeks. At the very least, ruling out violence while advocating Machiavellianism is a contradiction in terms. But his apparent hope that the elite will arise via covert means may be even more insidious. This attempt to subvert the institutions of our constitutional republic is a major reason why the populist movement in the celebrity of Trump arose in the first place. The movement was in part a reaction against such illiberal means employed not only by the left, but also by the right.

The solution, contrary to the rightwing recommendation of regime change or the leftwing rejection of individual rights for the sake of identity politics, is a return to the basic principles of the American Proposition—both its constitutional and legal means and its moral ends, as limited as they may be. To paraphrase Churchill, America’s constitutional republic is the worst regime, except for all of the others.