What Does the 'Post-Liberal Right' Actually Want?
About this episode
Ezra Klein interviews Patrick Deneen, a University of Notre Dame political theorist presented as the leading intellectual voice of the post-liberal right. Deneen argues that liberalism has failed as a governing philosophy and urges conservatives to abandon 'defensive crouch conservatism' — the older market-oriented, small-government posture — in favor of using state power for the common good, including support for workers, families, and domestic industry. Klein presses him on the policy substance, observing that much of Deneen's agenda (pro-worker policies, family supports, tech skepticism) overlaps with the contemporary left's, and probes where it diverges on abortion, immigration, and state authority. They spar over family breakdown and whether making divorce harder is desirable, the relationship between the post-liberal project and Trumpism, and whether the 'new right' genuinely breaks from Reagan-era market fundamentalism.