What JD Vance and the New Intellectual Right Want
The Brains Behind the Trump Era
Vice President JD Vance recently criticized Pope Leo XIV online over his criticism of the war in Iran. It was a bold move for a Catholic convert, but perhaps not surprising, given the larger ideological commitments that have shaped Vance and his milieu. In a new book, Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right, scholar Laura K. Field tracks the intellectual leaders — scholars, policy wonks, think tankers — who have fueled Trump’s political ascendancy. Ranging from Catholic commentator Sohrab Ahmari to former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to internet personality Bronze Age Pervert, Field says they don’t care so much about President Donald Trump as they do about fighting liberal democracy and replacing it with economic nationalism, anti-immigration policies and America First foreign policy.
Field joined Katelyn and Roxy for a fascinating conversation about who these men are, what they want, and how they could shape American democracy far beyond the Trump era.
GUEST: Laura K. Field is a political theorist as well as a scholar in residence at American University, a senior adviser for the Illiberalism Studies Program at George Washington University and a nonresident fellow with the Brookings Institution. She’s the author of Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right.
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