[Future of America Series] ⑤ J.D. Vance: Apostle Paul of the MAGA Movement?

I. America's War of Souls and the Transformation of the Republican Party

The three U.S. presidential elections since 2016 cannot be interpreted as isolated events. Beyond the consistent presence of a problematic figure, Donald J. Trump, on one side of the competition, these elections have reflected a continuous clash between two social forces over the same theme, allowing them to be grouped as a single episode shaping a significant trend in modern American history. Joe Biden, borrowing the expression of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, named this political confrontation a "battle for the soul of America" and explained its essence as a conflict between "our better angels and our darker impulses." The fault line indicated by this theological metaphor is as follows: On one side is the force that imagines America as a nation based on liberal ideals. They believe that the "self-evident truths" proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and the constitutional principles and fundamental rights enshrined in the Federal Constitution form the essence of the United States of America, and they argue that anyone who shares these principles can be accepted as an American. On the other side are those with an exclusive view that sees America as a white Christian community. Their position is that who is an American is determined by the sharing of "core culture" and inherited identity (Cha 2024, 239-290).

This debate over national identity is all the more noteworthy because it extends beyond the domestic sphere to influence foreign policy. As is well known, the world order in which we have lived since World War II is largely a product of America's grand strategy vision. And the content of that vision depends on how Americans define their nation's reason for being and its role in world history. Therefore, the "war of souls" between social forces over America's self-identity inevitably extends beyond the domestic dimension to impact the global order. Specifically, the universalist civic nationalism of the former is directly linked to the liberal internationalist doctrine advocating for America's exceptional role in changing the world. In contrast, the particularist ethno-religious nationalism of the latter criticizes America's hegemonic role as a waste of resources and supports a realpolitik grand strategy. They argue that America, like other ordinary great powers, should prioritize its national interests above all else (Cha 2024, 135-169).

Against this historical backdrop, we need to pay attention to how the medium- and long-term changes in the Republican Party are shaping America's political landscape. Triggered by events such as the 2008 financial crisis and the inauguration of Barack Obama as president, the Republican Party has gradually moved to the ideological far-right as the Tea Party movement and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement have successively captured the party apparatus (Son 2024). The identity of the Republican Party as a conservative party, which was based on neoliberal economic policies and neo-conservative foreign interventionism after Reagan, has largely disappeared. Instead, today's "Grand Old Party" (G.O.P.) has transformed into a party Trumpified, advocating populism and white nationalism. If these changes are consolidated at the level of party realignment in the future, regardless of Trump's personal political fate, the Republican Party will continue to play a role in bringing the non-liberal demands of the white working class, such as anti-interventionism and protectionism, into public discourse in the foreign policy decision-making process. And if one of the two major parties continues to move in this direction, America's grand strategy itself will be significantly shaken, leading to a decline in the credibility of the U.S. for foreign countries and even an increased possibility of disrupting the world order itself.

II. J.D. Vance as the Leader of the Post-Liberal Right

It is in this context that J.D. Vance's nomination as Vice Presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention last July is significant. Even before that, he had emerged not merely as a common Republican politician loyal to Trump, but as a key figure in ideological movements referred to as the New Right and post-liberalism. In other words, Vance has been at the center of the new "regime change" trend pursued by today's young elite conservatives by adding ideological depth to Trumpism and leading the movement to further radicalize the ideological revolution that began in the Trump era. For this reason, Steve Bannon, a leading ideologue of the alt-right, predicted that Vance would play a role akin to "Apostle Paul," serving as the "nerve center" of their movement. It is a prophecy that Vance will undertake the mission of an ardent "convert" spreading the "gospel" of Trumpism far and wide, much like Apostle Paul doctrinalized and widely preached the words of Jesus Christ (Ward 2024a).[1]

Vance's ambition is not limited to transforming the Republican Party; he aims to fundamentally restructure America's domestic and foreign policies, and indeed its constitutional order. He defines this plan as a long-term project spanning decades, distinguishing him from other populist Republican politicians. Notably, Vance regards even the established Republican leadership as part of the "liberal regime" and calls for revolutionary change against the liberal elites steeped in market fundamentalism and foreign interventionism, and the entire system they have built. In this context, it is understandable why Vance often collaborates with left-wing Democrats, such as Elizabeth Warren, on legislative matters. This is because they share a common concern about the special interests of large corporations. Vance believes that while Warren is a staunch leftist ideologically opposed to him, they can sometimes work together because she recognizes and contemplates the fundamental brokenness of American society (Ward 2024a).

While several figures are mentioned as influences on Vance's unique political ideology, Patrick Deneen, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, is identified as the representative thinker of the post-liberal and regime change movement he espouses (Ward 2024b). Deneen gained worldwide fame with the publication of his 2018 bestseller, "Why Liberalism Failed." By explaining the Trump phenomenon, a central topic of debate in intellectual circles at the time, within the macro-analytical framework of the failure of the modern Western liberal project, the book received significant praise even from progressive circles.[2]In terms of intellectual lineage, Deneen belongs to the communitarian school and the Catholic school of integralism[3](Liedl 2024; Linker 2024), criticizing the increased inequality, concentration of power in government/corporations, social disintegration, and loss of tradition/norms resulting from the misguided pursuit of individualistic "freedom" in modern liberalism. As an alternative, he proposed the restoration of a community of citizens cultivating virtue and pursuing the common good in the ancient sense (Deneen 2018). In fact, up to this point, his arguments fall within the context of the classic debate between liberalism and communitarianism (or republicanism) in American political thought, and his claims do not significantly deviate from the tradition of Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, and Charles Taylor, who sought to restore the ancient Greek polis concept of freedom championed by Aristotle.

However, Deneen's critique of liberalism has since become more radical, evolving into an ideological movement pursuing post-liberal regime change. The core idea of his recent book, "Regime Change: Towards a Post-Liberal Future," is that a "revolutionary" change must be driven—not necessarily a violent overthrow of the government, but something more fundamental—to transcend the liberal consensus that both conservatives and progressives within the existing liberal democratic system agree upon (Deneen 2023). In this process of ideological evolution, Deneen has become a leader of the "anti-woke culture war" domestically, opposing LGBTQ+ rights, critical race theory, abortion, and divorce. He has even shown solidarity with authoritarian forces abroad, visiting Hungary at the invitation of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to discuss the future of the post-liberal order (Ward 2023).

Amidst this, Vance attended a book launch discussion for Deneen at the Catholic University of America in May 2023, where he declared himself a "post-liberal right-winger" and stated that his role in Congress was "explicitly anti-regime" (Ward 2023). Meanwhile, when Vance was nominated as the Republican Vice Presidential candidate in July, Deneen praised him as the "ideal candidate" to further advance Trump-style populism (Liedl 2024).

III. America After "Regime Change"?

Synthesizing the above points, J.D. Vance's nomination as Vice Presidential candidate by Trump can be seen as an indication of the possibility that the Republican Party will be taken over by the post-liberal right, which dogmatizes "Trumpism." Regardless of whether Trump wins the 2024 election, the foundation for the far-right populist movement to use the Republican Party as an institutional vehicle to influence American domestic politics and foreign policy in the long term has been laid through Vance's "coronation." The following will offer a glimpse into what America might look like after the "regime change" envisioned by post-liberal forces, based on Vance's major speeches. Although they call themselves the "New Right," they actually advocate for an older version of conservatism. That is, following interwar conservative populism, they advocate for realist and nationalist policies—such as high tariffs, immigration restrictions, and reduced foreign intervention—based on anti-liberal nationalism.

1. Populist Nationalism

As a faithful populist, Vance divides the world into "villains" and "victims." On one side are the pure working people living in "forgotten places excluded from America," in "small towns," while on the other side are the villains, both domestic ("America's ruling class," "corrupt Washington insiders," "Wall Street elites," "multinational corporations") and foreign ("Chinese Communist Party," "millions of illegal immigrants"), who exploit and oppress them. And this unfortunate situation has arisen because the ruling class of America has repeatedly failed until Trump's presidency. For example, Biden, a representative of the establishment, supported policies such as the creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Iraq War throughout his political career, and ordinary Americans have paid the price for these wrong decisions. Vance argues that Trump is the last hope for America to regain what it has lost, and he emphasizes that he too will be a Vice President who does not forget the suffering of his home region, the Rust Belt (Vance 2024d).

On a more fundamental level of national identity politics, Vance delineates the nation of America and the meaning of being an American through the concepts of "homeland" and "nation." In line with the right-wing populist approach, for him, America is not an abstract set of "ideas" or "principles" but "a collective of people with a shared history and a common future." Particularly interesting is that Vance used his ancestral burial ground in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky as an example to elaborate on the nature of this collective identity. According to his explanation, his ancestors have been buried in that cemetery for generations since the Civil War, and if he, his spouse, and their children are buried there, seven generations will be reunited in one place (Vance 2024d). This suggests that a reactionary European-style nationalism, fundamentally defining national identity as a place and kinship community ("Blood and Soil"), is deeply embedded in Vance's political thought (Serwer 2024).

Vance's rhetoric is, in fact, intentionally presented as the antithesis to Biden's concept of a "creedal nation." In line with the liberal tradition, Biden has defined America as an idea ("America is an idea") in numerous speeches and repeatedly quoted the key phrase from the Declaration of Independence, which accepts the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as "self-evident truths" (Biden 2019; 2024a; 2024b). This clear contrast in national identity concepts ultimately leads to a fundamental paradigm difference in foreign policy as well.

2. Realist Foreign Policy

When discussing foreign strategy, Vance, true to the Trumpist worldview, focuses on criticizing the "old slogans" of the foreign policy establishment[4]. This is because he interprets post-Cold War American foreign policy as a "series of disasters." First, the "moral instinct" that has underpinned American foreign policy for the past two decades, or the idea that spreading democracy globally serves national interests, has been proven entirely wrong, as evidenced by the outcome of the Iraq War. Vance assesses that the war, far from spreading democracy, merely led to the mass killing of Christians. Second, what angers Vance the most regarding the issue of U.S.-China competition, the biggest topic in foreign policy today, is the fact that the American leadership allowed China's rise. In other words, he diagnoses that the bipartisan consensus in Washington tacitly allowed China to build its middle class by sacrificing the American middle class. In the same vein, the Western arrogance that manufacturing and technological innovation can be arbitrarily separated has been proven a fantasy, evidenced by China's rapid growth, according to Vance's critique. Furthermore, he considers the neoconservative approach to China to be the most foolish, as it involves allowing China to manufacture everything, thereby strengthening it, and then advocating for war with this empowered China (Vance 2024c).

So, what is the alternative grand strategy vision that Vance proposes? He explains that his doctrine is based on two principles: realism prioritizing national interest and domestic economic revival, which serves as the philosophical foundation for a foreign policy for the American middle class. Also important is the fact that he envisions a "world of multipolarity" as the future international order for the next 30-40 years. Due to the failure of the grand strategy pursued by both parties over the past 40 years, America has now declined to the point where it can no longer fight multiple wars, while China is unlikely to collapse in the near future. Therefore, Vance's geopolitical review concludes that China's existence as a great power must be acknowledged as it is (Vance 2024c).

Therefore, in this multipolar world, America must recognize the "scarcity of resources" and decide on "trade-offs." In other words, it must determine what interests are most vital to America and where to concentrate its national strength. Vance criticizes the established leadership in Washington, including the Republican mainstream, for their inability to make such compromises or trade-offs, emphasizing the need to restore the regional balance of power in the Middle East and Europe, thereby enabling regional powers to stabilize the situation themselves and creating conditions for America to focus more on East Asia (Vance 2024c).

More specifically, in both the Israeli and Ukrainian issues, which can be considered the two major current challenges, Vance seeks to implement this "offshore balancing strategy." Regarding the Middle East conflict, the immediate goal is the defeat of Hamas, but the ultimate objective is to form a regional balance of power by reviving the Abraham Accords process, enabling Israel and Sunni states to form an alliance to counter Iran.

Next, concerning the war in Ukraine, he points out that the Western bloc's inability to produce sufficient weapons is the root of the problem, arguing that the real limitation is not America's will or money, but its munitions manufacturing capacity. He also adds that the ammunition shortage caused by support for Ukraine would be fatal in the event of a similar incident in Taiwan. Furthermore, Vance assesses that Putin does not pose an existential threat to Europe and emphasizes that the rational goal of the war in Ukraine must be "peace through negotiation." In other words, he dismisses Volodymyr Zelenskyy's goal of restoring the 1991 borders as fantasy, and while the Biden administration repeatedly declared that it could not negotiate with Putin, it has no plan for how Ukraine can win, he points out. Therefore, he argues that the only solution is to shift Kyiv's military strategy to defense and mediate peace negotiations with Moscow. Extending this line of reasoning, Vance urges Europe to awaken and emphasizes that Europeans must strive to possess sufficient deterrence themselves. Although he does not intend to dismantle NATO or abandon Europe, he insists that Europeans must accept the reality that America's foreign policy will focus on East Asia for the next 40 years (Vance 2024a;b).

IV. Conclusion

The post-liberal direction can be seen as a generational trend in contemporary American society. On one hand, it is true that the radical and authoritarian aspects of the MAGA movement represented by Vance often attract more attention and raise concerns. However, the interest in the white working class, excluded and forgotten during the process of neoliberal globalization, and the realist alternative presented, which criticizes indiscriminate intervention based on a good-vs-evil dichotomy in international relations, are important questions to consider when seeking the future of America.

On the other hand, the call for revisions to the established liberal consensus has been reflected to some extent in the policies of the Biden administration. For instance, the current administration has pursued overcoming the Washington Consensus by evoking memories of the New Deal revolution domestically, while also inheriting some aspects of Trump's mercantilist "America First" diplomacy in foreign policy. Furthermore, the progressive bloc within the Democratic Party, represented by figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is also exploring non-American (or Nordic-style) paths such as democratic socialism—which have long been marginalized in American history. As exemplified by the recent pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, which surprised the Democratic mainstream, the post-liberal paradigm from the left also has the potential to gain momentum depending on the extent to which anti-exceptionalism and anti-interventionist sentiments among millennials grow.

According to Louis Hartz's classic definition, America has always been an imagined community dominated uniformly by Lockean liberalism (Hartz 2012). In that sense, the challenge posed by post-liberal thought can be considered an unprecedented juncture in American history that could fundamentally alter America's foundational identity. In the post-unipolar era, the outcome of the competition among social forces within America will have significant ripple effects not only on the United States but also on the entire international order, meaning we are, in a sense, passing through a historically significant moment. ■

References

Hartz, Louis. Translated by Baek Chang-jae and Jeong Ha-yong. 2012. *The Liberal Tradition in America: An Interpretation of American Political Thought Since the Revolution*. Seoul: Nanam.

Son, Byung-kwon. 2024. *The Tea Party Movement and the Make America Great Again Movement: Resistance Movements for the Restoration of 'Real America'*. Seoul: Seoul National University Press.

Cha, Tae-seo. 2024. *30 Years of Crisis: America and the World Order in the Post-Unipolar Era*. Seoul: Sungkyunkwan University Press.

Biden, Joe. 2019. “Joe Biden: America Is an Idea.” The Washington Post.April 25. https://www.washingtonpost.com/...video.html(Accessed: August 23, 2024).

______. 2024a. “Remarks by President Biden in Statement to the American People.” The White House. July 24. https://www.whitehouse.gov/...people/(Accessed: August 23, 2024).

______. 2024b. “Remarks by President Biden During Keynote Address at the Democratic National Committee Convention, Chicago, IL.” The White House. August 19. https://www.whitehouse.gov/...chicago-il/(Accessed: August 23, 2024).

Continetti, Matthew. 2023. “J.D. Vance and the Rise of ‘Postliberalism’.” Wall Street Journal.July 16. https://www.wsj.com/...1f200696(Accessed: August 23, 2024).

Deneen, Patrick. 2018. Why Liberalism Failed.New Haven: Yale University Press.

______. 2023. Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future. Penguin.

Elie, Paul. 2024. “J.D. Vance’s Radical Religion.” The New Yorker. July 24. https://www.newyorker.com/...religion (Accessed: August 23, 2024).

Liedl, Jonathan. 2024. “JD Vance Is a Catholic ‘Post-Liberal’: Here’s What That Means — And Why It Matters.” National Catholic Register. July 24. https://www.ncregister.com/...liberal (Accessed: August 23, 2024).

Linker, Damon. 2024. “The Post-liberal Catholics Find Their Man.” The Atlantic. August 8. https://www.theatlantic.com/.../679388/ (Accessed: August 23, 2024).

Serwer, Adam. 2024. “J. D. Vance’s Empty Nationalism.” The Atlantic. July 19. https://www.theatlantic.com/.../679116/ (Accessed: August 23, 2024).

Vance, J.D. 2024a. “Senator Vance delivers a ‘Wake Up Call’ to Munich Security Conference.” US Senate. February 18. https://www.vance.senate.gov/...conference/ (Accessed: August 23, 2024).

______. 2024b. “The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up.” New York Times. April 12. https://www.nytimes.com/...ukraine.html (Accessed: August 23, 2024).

______. 2024c. “Transcript of the May 23, 2024, Quincy Institute Conference.” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. May 23. https://quincyinst.s3.amazonaws.com/...Conference.docx.pdf (Accessed: August 23, 2024).

______. 2024d. “Read the Transcript of J.D. Vance’s Convention Speech.” New York Times. July 18. https://www.nytimes.com/...speech.html (Accessed: August 23, 2024).

Ward, Ian. 2023. “‘I Don’t Want to Violently Overthrow the Government. I Want Something Far More Revolutionary’.” Politico. June 8. https://www.politico.com/...00100279 (Accessed: August 23, 2024).

______. 2024a. “Is There Something More Radical than MAGA? J.D. Vance Is Dreaming It.” Politico. March 15. https://www.politico.com/...00147054 (Accessed: August 23, 2024).

______. 2024b. “The Seven Thinkers and Groups That Have Shaped JD Vance’s Unusual Worldview.” Politico. July 18. https://www.politico.com/...00168984 (Accessed: August 23, 2024).

[1] Vance initially criticized Trump as a dangerous figure who could become “Hitler of the United States” during his rise in the 2016 presidential election. However, Vance later visited Trump, apologized for his remarks, and pledged loyalty, which allowed him to win the Senate seat for Ohio in the 2022 midterm elections with Trump's endorsement.

[2] The New York Times published several related reviews and columns, and former President Obama also left favorable comments.

[3]Its core tenet is to realize the social vision of old-school conservatism by mobilizing state apparatus and laws.

[4]The targets of criticism include not only insiders in the foreign policy field but also mainstream Republicans like Mitch McConnell. Vance assesses that nearly all positions taken by McConnell, who has served as a senator since 1984, the year Vance was born, were a series of errors.

■ Cha Tae-seo_Professor, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Sungkyunkwan University.

■ Editor:Lee So-young, EAI Research Assistant

    Inquiries and Editing: 02 2277 1683 (ext. 205) | sylee@eai.or.kr