What role do intellectuals actually play in the broader dynamic through which the right has gained, maintained, and justified its political power? Do their ideas shape the right’s politics and culture in significant ways? Or are they ancillary to broader historical and social developments? What does it even mean to take the right’s ideas seriously?

This roundtable brings together historians and political theorists who have written extensively on this topic to explore and debate the substance and significance of anti-liberal intellectuals in the Trump era. Highlighting thinkers and groups who explicitly reject the central tenets of liberal democracy, liberal culture, and libertarian economics, we will discuss the rise of new ideological paradigms in right-wing politics—including post-liberalism, Catholic integralism, National Conservatism, and New Industrialism, among others.

What are these ideas, and where do they come from? Do they constitute mere continuations of older ideologies or sharp departures from the past? Are they driving broader political and cultural shifts or simply exploiting them? What is their relationship to fascism and other forms of authoritarian politics? What is their connection to earlier critiques of liberalism on the left? Do they have a popular following? What impacts, if any, are they having on the institutional and political landscape of the New Right?

More broadly, what recent historical developments fueled the ascent of anti- and post-liberal thought on the right? Have these developments contributed to a genuine crisis of liberalism? If so, how are liberals and left-wing intellectuals responding to it? And what does all this entail for the future of the anti-Trump coalition?

We look forward to a lively and dynamic discussion among the panelists and a stimulating conversation about these questions with the audience, which we hope will include scholars and teachers of modern US political history, others who are interested in these questions for their own work in different areas and time periods, and anyone else seeking to better understand the evolving ideological dynamics of our current political moment.