The truth is that the whole point of the book is much more modest—and underwhelming—than the title and revolutionary-cosplay chapter titles suggest. Whereas, according to political theory, “regime change” means the wholesale replacement of a system of government, usually by force, Deneen’s Regime Change boils down to the idea that we need to replace the existing elites, specifically on the right, with a “New Right” of people who think like Patrick Deneen. Still, there is a tiny threat to the actual regime in his mission statement: “What is needed, in short, is regime change—the peaceful but vigorous overthrow of a corrupt and corrupting liberal ruling class and the creation of a postliberal order in which existing political forms can remain in place, as long as a fundamentally different ethos informs those institutions and the personnel who populate key offices and positions” [italics mine]. In other words, so long as my team is in charge, we can keep the Constitution and all that stuff. I’d find this more worrying if I thought this tiny cadre of reactionary malcontents could get a post-liberal integralist elected dogcatcher.Regardless, given that today’s New Right is, by my rough count, at least the fifth self-declared New Right since World War II, I find such highfalutin tough talk less worrisome—and less impressive—than the integralists might think. This is a very old story about a very old strategy. A cranky faction of the right decides it has that special gnosis and that they are the only legitimate standard bearers for their side. They denounce the (alleged) holders of power and influence as fakers, RINOs, closet progressives, Me-too Republicans, sell-outs, squishes, wets, and so on in order to claim that history must make room for the new priests of the True Faith. Often, the mainstream media will hype the New Right insurgents to use it as a cudgel against the establishment right they already despise. Not knowing that this attention is purely instrumental and short-lived, these rebels become all the more convinced they have History on their side.
The intellectual history of the right—and left—is replete with such efforts. The orthodoxies and heresies change (somewhat) almost every decade, as do the terms for them. People are declaring Libertarian Moments and Neoconservative Moments and Nationalist Moments all the time. It’s moments all the way down.
Stripped of its disquisitions on Aristotle and Aquinas and oddly envious or trollish allusions to various leftist radicals (one chapter borrows its title from Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? and another from C. Wright Mills’ The Power Elite), Regime Change looks more like just another moment where one faction leaps at an opportunity to get to the top of the greasy pole.
-- Jonah Goldberg, Patrick Deneen’s Otherworldly Regime, by Jonah Goldberg. Religion & Liberty Vol. 33, No. 3. A review of Patrick Deneen's Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future Sentinel (June 6, 2023).
