Kenneth Manusama is an Americanist and expert on U.S. constitutional law.

Key figures in the current U.S. government seem to believe in a ‘postliberal’, rather than a liberal order. That order places society – the collective – above individual rights, advocates for a strong executive leadership, and favors an amoral approach to international relations. This fundamental attitude has been on display since the first Trump administration. It is being implemented now.

The current chaos and confusion in the United States, and the uncertainties in both its domestic and foreign policies often obscure the philosophical development of what we used to call ‘Trumpism’. But it is imperative to look beyond that moniker towards a time after Trump and what may follow ‘Trumpism’. The signs of what that may entail are clearly visible, not only in the policies of the current Administration but also in the overt expressions of the natural successor of President Trump, his vicepresident, JD Vance.

His words and the intellectual work on which these are based capture within one theoretical framework all that gave rise to Trump and the ‘Make America Great Again’ movement. It combines modern populist grievances, long held deep conservative views and a vision for the future that seeks to replace liberal democracies based on the rule of law as we know them today, as well as the geopolitical order.

A civilization in decline

Under the relatively innocuous new banner ‘national conservatism’, whose adherents have been congregating in national conferences for the past five years, a postliberal national and world view has essentially taken power in Washington D.C. It decries that modern liberal American society is now a civilization in decline, unmoored from family, tradition and religion; with individualism run amok, and a bloated, but more importantly, ineffective government. It is the basis for the critique levied at modern liberal societies by academics and authors like Yozan Harony,^[1] Patrick Deneen^[2] and Adrian Vermeule,^[3] or fringe reactionaries like Curtis Yarvin^[4].

In a recent speech, Vance approached the cultural issue by questioning who is able or allowed to claim US citizenship. He dismissed the American creed that anyone accedes to certain principles of American democracy and the rule of law, firstly and most poignantly described by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Instead of Jefferson’s creed, Vance posited that the ‘American civilization’, which is also the nucleus of the Western civilization, is a specific culture that was present at the founding of America in the late 18th century. “We’re a particular place, with a particular people, and a particular set of beliefs and way of life” said Vance.^[5] Only the heirs to that heritage are entitled to citizenship.

Collection of collectives

The heritage that Vance is referring to is thus decidedly Christian and white. And the implications of that are quite clear. Immigration from certain parts of the world must be curtailed and even reversed; and DEI programmes (diversity, equity, inclusion) which aim to assist minorities of color and other disadvantaged groups in society – including women and LGBTQ people – must be ended; policies that are being implemented as of January 20t, 2025. Increasingly, overt calls for and invocation of religious faith are expressed by government officials. Christian beliefs are explicitly advocated and given room within the government.

In addition, conceptually, postliberalism places society – the collective – above the individual and individual rights. Hazony, for instance, takes aim at social contract theory of, for instance, John Locke. He erroneously takes Thomas Hobbes’ and Locke’s thought experiment of the state of nature and the social contract thesis at face value, and dismisses it as unrealistic. Instead, Hazony argues, political order is borne out of a collection of collectives like the family and the tribe with loyalty being the binding factor, with the individual rights necessarily taking a back seat. The  common good, the public interest, takes precedence.

Who gets to decide?

The core notion that individual rights must be protected against the democratic majority in a system under the rule of law is, therefore, not as self-evident. Moreover, who gets to decide what is in the public interest or the common good? In a postliberal, national-conservative America, it is the Executive Branch, i.e. the President. Although historically and legally incorrect, the constitutional argument is that the presidency and executive power, as described in Article II of the Constitution, has been defanged, too curtailed by Congress and too often tripped up by courts and judges.

This fundamental attitude has been on display since the first Trump Administration. It is being implemented now. We have seen a centralization of power into executive hands at the expense of the independence of regulatory agencies through executive orders that concentrate the interpretation of the law in the president and attorney general. We have seen the (attempted) firing of members of the leadership of independent agencies and gutting their operations, such as USAID, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board, which threatens their independence.

International consequences

This ethnic and cultural nationalism has, ironically enough, clear international components. Based on biblical arguments, the nation state with a common culture, religion and language is according to the national conservatives the natural organizing principle of political order of the world. It is a form of nationalism borne out of a real or imagined fear of world government without national borders, propagated by liberal internationalists. International institutions are per definition suspect, like the United Nations, but also the European Union and even NATO. These organizations are a threat to every independent nation state, not only the United States, according to national conservatives.

The other international component is therefore that US national conservatives find intellectual and political allies in Europe and elsewhere. The ideological connections between the far right in Europe and the MAGA movement in the US have deepened significantly, and the national conservative project against international institutions has created networks to actively undermine the European Union.

Another implication of the focus on absolute respect for the nation state is the amoral character of the national conservative outlook on international relations. Sovereignty and independence trumps any moral judgement of the internal affairs of other states. For instance, the US State Department has downgraded its human rights reporting of other states, and involvement in and with other states in general as the dismantling of US international development shows.

National conservatism and post liberalism are of course also responses to economic liberal globalization and its detrimental effects on some national economies. The rapid imposition of worldwide tariffs by the US on the world in order to protect the national economy is ideologically consistent, but devoid of a sense of reality. To think that globalized economies can easily decouple is fantasy land.

Spheres of influence

Despite this ideological emphasis on independent, sovereign states, American national conservatives still see America as an exceptional nation with a preeminent position in the world. The national conservative/postliberal geopolitical view is a mix of nineteenth century Great Power thinking and voluntary retreat from global leadership. It is a matter of opinion of whether we are already in a multipolar world, but the United States seems not to be interested in taking a leadership role, but rather ‘share’ the world with other Powers on equal footing and with their respective spheres of influence.

This and the amoral approach to international relations explains this governments disinterest in Ukraine and the continued offers to aid Russia’s economy. On the other hand, the US is willing to confront China’s rise in order to ensure that it does not rise so far as to surpass the United States. Taiwan may be a bargaining chip to be played in that managed rise. There seems to be quite some naiveté, probably based on the impulses of President Trump, that the world can be easily divided between the three Powers without having some kind of conflict erupt in the future. In the meantime, Europe is faced with possible abandonment by the United States, unchecked aggression by Russia and the rise of an expansionist China.

National conservatism and its core of post liberalism stand in clear tension with at least Western liberal democracies. The geopolitical order is also heading towards a realignment that can only cause global conflict, unless realistically managed. For these reasons it is imperative that Europe stays vigilant to these US domestic developments in order to recognize the internal and global moves that America makes for what they are, and react accordingly.

^[1] Yoram Hazony, The Virtue of Nationalism (2018)

^[2] Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (2018); Patrick J. Deneen, Regime Change (2023)

^[3] E.g. Adrian Vermeule, Good Constitutionalism (2022)

^[4] Ava Kofman, ‘Curtis Yarvin’s Plot Against America’, June 2, 2025, The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/curtis-yarvin-profile

^[5] JD Vance, ‘American Statesmanship for the Golden Age’, The American Mind, May 14, 2025, https://americanmind.org/salvo/american-statesmanship-for-the-golden-age/