Obama praised Deneen. But Deneen is a reactionary kook.

[BidenPresident]

Political scientist Patrick J. Deneen’s book, Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future, which calls on conservatives to use a “raw assertion of political power” and the “force of a threat” in order to topple the liberal order.

Regime Change is also full of disturbing digressions warning readers of a “totalitarian” plot afoot by progressives and their allies to enact “the effective elimination of whiteness” and of “white, heterosexual Christian men (and anyone sympathizing with them).” Such paranoid and conspiratorial ideas resonate with the ideology of the fascist right, including the neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville, Va., who in 2017 carried torches and chanted “you will not replace us.”

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-thin-line-between-postliberalism-and-theocracy?cid=gen_sign_in

 

[BidenPresident]

Deneen’s worldview is unrelentingly zero-sum. He says he seeks nothing less than the “renewal of the Christian roots of our civilization.”

And what if you don’t want to live in this regime — one that rejects “democratic pluralism” and sounds suspiciously like a theocracy? Well, that’s too bad for you.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/07/books/review/regime-change-patrick-deneen.html