Americanist - Trumpian Post-Liberal Conservatism and Roman Catholicism
by Don Curzio Nitoglia (doncurzionitoglia.wordpress.com)Luc Pacioli (I think a pseudonym; in fact, there is a famous Luca Pacioli, who died in Borgo San Sepolcro in the province of Arezzo in 1517, who was a Franciscan friar, mathematician and economist, recognized as the founder of accountancy) wrote: «This American progressivism, amplified by Globalism, has spread like an infectious virus throughout the Western social body, almost totally eroding the Christian heritage» (Conservateurs post-libéraux américains, in “Le sel de la terre”, Avrillé, n. 133, September 2025, p. 94).
The North American “deep state,” globalist progressivism, hatred against God and natural law, and, finally, against created being, which has as its goal hatred of self-subsisting Being, are the current outcome of late nineteenth-century Americanism.
Now, one wonders, could something good arise from this order or disorder of things, typical of Americanism; if it were corrected by the "right," that is, by "Trump-philosophy"?
Certainly “God can raise up children for Abraham even from stones” (Lk., III, 8; Mt., III, 9), being omnipotent; but, normally He lets secondary causes act, that is, the human being, and then intervenes with His “Grace, which presupposes nature, does not destroy it but perfects it” (S. Th., I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2; I, q. 62, a. 5; II-II, q. 26, a. 9, arg. 2; III, q. 69, a. 8, arg. 3; I, q. 2, ad 1; I-II, a. 5, ad 1; I-II, q. 94, a. 6, ad 2; q. 99, a. 2, ad 1; III, q. 71, a. 1, ad 1).
The author (Luc Pacioli) of the above-mentioned article examines the life and doctrine of the main leaders of the pro-Trumpist American “right” movement, which he defines as “American national/post-liberal neo-conservatism” (p. 94).
He rightly distinguishes 1) the neocon movement (Reagan and Bush Sr. & Jr.); 2) the frenzied and even "messianic" interventionism of the Democrats (Clinton, wife & husband, plus Barack Obama); and, finally, 3) the apparently post-liberal and anti-establishment "conservatism" of Trump, which seemed more stable in his first term, but in his second seems to be gripped by strong turmoil and instability. This "conservatism" is bringing us (see Gaza, Iran, Venezuela, and above all—albeit intermittently—Ukraine, ending with Europe) to the brink of nuclear catastrophe.
Honestly, it doesn't seem to me that "Trump/philosophy" is anti-Americanist/system; perhaps it is post-liberal in that chronologically it came after the hyper-liberal neocon era of Reagan and the Chicago Boys (Hayek, Mises, Milton Friedman), but it is not diametrically opposed to progressivism; at most, it could be a slow-moving progressivism; therefore, post-liberal, but not anti-liberal.
Patrick Buchanan
A “precursor” (who seems to me much more serious and reliable, despite some limitations) of Trump is Patrick Buchanan (who in turn could be traced back to Lyndon LaRouche).
Buchanan is defined as a “paleo/conservative” to distinguish him from the neocon movement (Reagan/Bush/Thatcher) which is openly globalist, hyper-liberal and liberal.
Buchanan was born in 1938 and is a sort of precursor to "national conservatives" like Donald Trump and J.D. Vance (who, however, was largely funded by the pro-Israel lobby for his election campaign, with approximately $15 million). Buchanan does not accept the neoconservative political vision, according to which the US is the "world policeman," whose task is to be a "healthy carrier" of modern democracy throughout the globe.
J.D. Vance
J.D. Vance, just 40 years old, is a Marine veteran in Iraq and holds a law degree from Yale University. He is the Vice President of the United States. Born in 1984, he is a member of the Republican Party and served as a Senator from 2023 to 2025. He was initially highly critical of Trump during the 2016 elections, but changed his mind after announcing his candidacy for the Senate with the Republican Party and became a staunch Trump supporter. Vance is of Scottish/Irish descent. In 2005, he was sent to Iraq as a war correspondent for six months. He is currently considered a national conservative, a right-wing populist, drawing inspiration from the thinking of Pat Buchanan, Rod Dreher, and Patrick Deneen. He is a representative of the "America First" movement, which opposes the proliferation of US military and economic interventions abroad, for example in Ukraine. He is opposed to abortion and illegal immigration. In 2019, after studying St. Augustine, he converted to Catholicism, thanks in part to his friendship with Professor Patrick Deneen, René Girard, and Peter Thiel. He too can be described as a paleo-conservative and anti-abortionist.
Donald Trump seemed intent on translating American nationalist ideas into a popular, mass movement. He was vaguely inspired by Buchanan, but especially by Reagan; today he is attempting to restore the declining American economy through protectionism, the fight against mass and illegal immigration, and the counteraction of the "deep state"'s extreme progressivism.
Patrick Deneen and Rod Dreher
Patrick Deneen, professor at the University of Notre-Dame (Indiana), is a young (born in 1964) paleo/conservative intellectual, moderately anti-liberal and anti-free market, linked to the “pro-life” or “pro-family” theory.
He is a friend not only of JD Vance, but also of the writer and journalist Rod Dreher, author of the famous book The Benedict Option, which saw Benedict XVI as a sort of neo-Saint Benedict of Nursia, capable of re-Christianizing Europe as the Benedictines of Subiaco and Monte Cassino did when ancient Rome collapsed and the Germanic barbarians invaded the Empire... a thesis that has no basis in reality. Dreher was a journalist at the New York Times who converted to Aristotelian individual and social moral philosophy. Unfortunately, in 2022 he converted to schismatic Orthodoxy (believing that the Benedictines in the 9th and 10th centuries could have reunited Catholics and Orthodox, and could still do so today...) and is an advisor to Viktor Orban (of Hussite religion). Dreher's theory does not seem very reconcilable to me with the history, doctrine, and spirituality of the Benedictine Order: Catholic, apostolic, and Roman.
The author (Luc Pacioli) speaks of three types of lobbies or think-tanks: 1) the Heritage Foundation, primarily political in nature; 2) the Federal Society, primarily legal in nature; 3) the Hoover Foundation, primarily economic and technological in nature.
1) The Heritage Foundation (in the political order) is a pillar of American conservatism. It was founded in 1973, under President Nixon, by Paul Weyrich, Edwin Fuelner (a Reagan-era economist), and Joseph Coors. Today, historian Kevin D. Roberts supports Roman Catholicism and fights against Washington's deep state.
Heritage (very close to the Bilderberg Club) also deals with anti-statist tax reforms; urban planning; national security; and family values versus gender theories. In short, if it's not Freemasonry, it's a kind of Super Lodge.
2°) The Federalist Society (legal order), brings together approximately 90 thousand jurists, opposed to progressive judicial activism and is co-directed by Leonard Leo.
3) The Hoover Institution (technological/financial order) is the most ambiguous conservative American think tank. In fact, it is very close to Silicon Valley. One of its most important executives (Peter Thiel) is very close to Elon Musk, David Saks (the king of artificial intelligence), and Milton Friedman (one of the leaders of the hyperliberal school of Hayek and Mises), a liberal and libertarian.
The ambiguity of this "third way" lies in its ability to present itself as a defender of traditional values while funding the transhumanist project of Noah Harari, a close friend of Brunello Cucinelli; the artificial intelligence that seeks to produce a human/machine or hybrid. Some of its leaders support the LGBTQ cause and maintain dangerous relationships with the deep state (the CIA, FBI, and Palantir, an expert in global surveillance technology).
In short, it is very difficult to reconcile the Foundation's anti-establishment rhetoric with its close ties to the Pentagon and various spy agencies.
If one looks at the philosophical origins of American conservatism, one finds figures such as Locke (A Treatise on Tolerance, 1689); Rousseau (The Social Contract, 1762); Beccaria (On Crimes and Punishments, 1764); Montesquieu (The Spirit of the Laws, 1748).
The influence of Freemasonry (under the Duke of Kent, the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, conservative and not radically secularist); of Judaism, especially Lubavitch Hasidim; of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee); and of Unitarian Calvinism (i.e., anti-Trinitarian and opposed to the divinity of Christ) are the three pillars of Americanism, both left and right; indeed, perhaps even more so, in the conservative realm.
1 Patrick Buchanan is an 87-year-old American politician, born in Washington on November 2, 1938. He served as an advisor to Republican US Presidents Richard Nixon (1969–1974), Gerald Ford (1974–1977), and Ronald Reagan (1981–1989). He ran unsuccessfully in the Republican Party primaries for the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections; in 2000, he ran for president on the Reform Party ticket. He is the leader of a paleo-conservative foundation: The American Cause. He opposes American imperialism and would like the US to focus primarily on the nation's internal problems, without involving itself in external ventures, especially war.
2 Lyndon LaRouche was an American politician born in 1922 and died in 2019. He led various political organizations in the United States and many other countries, including Italy, where the "International Civil Rights Movement – Solidarity" is still quite active. He founded the "Schiller Institute" and the magazine "Executive Intelligence Review" (EIR). He wrote numerous essays and books on economics and politics. He ran for president eight times, the first time in 1976. Since 1980, he has consistently run in the Democratic Party primaries. In 1992, he even ran from prison, where he had been incarcerated since 1988 for a 15-year sentence (for conspiracy and tax violations, almost unanimously considered an exaggerated political persecution by Bush Sr.), but this did not stop him from continuing his political struggle – from behind bars. He was pardoned by Bill Clinton in 1994 after serving approximately five years in prison. He was widely hated and often labeled a conspiracy theorist, a fascist, a homophobe, and an anti-Semite; others have portrayed him as a Marxist/Leninist. Yet, still others consider him persecuted by globalist and free-market synarchy. His philosophical background is Platonic and anti-Aristotelian. He came from a Quaker family who emigrated from Canada to North America, descended from the Pilgrim Fathers. From a young age, he studied Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant. In 1940, he was expelled from the Quaker community; in the 1960s, his parents, out of solidarity with him, founded their own Quaker community in Boston, of which Lyndon was an active member. However, their relationships with other Quaker communities were never idyllic. In 1944, he read Marx's works and embraced Marxism; in 1946, he joined the Trotskyist current of international communism. In the mid-1950s, he abandoned Marxism but joined the radical Trotskyist "Spartacist League," later joining a Maoist group. In 1968, he participated in the occupation of Columbia University. In 1998, he predicted, well in advance, the financial bubble created by the "New Economy" and the financial crisis of 2007. In the 2000 Democratic primaries, he received a high number of votes (in Arkansas, he received 22% of the vote compared to Al Gore's 78%), but the Democratic Party refused to recognize LaRouche's votes. In 2002, he opposed the second Persian Gulf War. In Italy, he began operating in the late 1970s, creating the "European Workers' Party." He later maintained relations with the Communist Refoundation Party. Finally, he passed away at the age of 96 on February 12, 2019.
3 Patrick Deneen was born in 1964. He is a theorist of political philosophy and has critically studied liberalism. He teaches political science at the University of Notre Dame, where he studies the relationships between political philosophy, religion, and culture. He argues that the principles of liberalism have caused social fragmentation and the erosion of social bonds. He is Catholic, of Irish origin. Politically, he is engaged in the "American National Conservatism" movement. He met Viktor Orban in 2019.
4 René Girard (1923-2015) was a French professor who held academic positions, especially in literature departments in the United States. He also studied theology, economics, and psychology, focusing on the relationship between religion and violence in the genesis and persistence of culture.
5 Peter Thiel was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1967. He is a prominent American entrepreneur of German origin. He founded the online payment service PayPal, which was acquired by eBay in 2002. He was also Facebook's first outside investor in 2004. He also founded Palantir (the company that analyzes all data received from the media, which is then passed on to intelligence services: CIA, FBI, etc.). He is openly gay. He defines himself as a "conservative libertarian," who has generously funded the American right; he also finances studies and research into Artificial Intelligence and life extension. In addition to US and German citizenship, he also holds New Zealand citizenship. Politically, he is a great admirer of Roland Reagan. He studied philosophy with René Girard. He formally belongs to the "Libertarian Party" and is a member of the Bilderberg Group's steering committee. In 2016, he supported Trump's presidential candidacy, funding it with $1.25 million. In 2017, he "married" his partner (Matt Danzeisen) in Vienna, and they adopted a baby girl. In July 2016, at the Republican Party Convention, he spoke and declared himself "proud to be gay and a Republican."
6 Patrick Deneen was born in 1964. He is a political theorist who has studied liberalism extensively and teaches at the University of Notre Dame. He is a Catholic of Irish origin. He can be described as a scholar of liberalism and democracy, classical and modern political thought, and American political thought. He is considered one of the most important American conservative intellectuals. He believes that liberalism in America has failed. He is admired by former President Barack Obama, even though he disagrees with his conclusions. Deneen believes that American liberalism can be replaced with a form of post-liberal conservatism, which seeks not only the individual good but also the common or social good.
7 Rod Dreher was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA in 1967. He is an American writer and film critic. He is the editor of The American Conservative, founded by Pat Buchanan in 2002; he opposed G. Bush's interventionist policies in the Iraq War; in the past, he collaborated with The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. He also became known in Europe, especially in Italy, for his 2017 book The Benedict Option, translated into Italian and published by San Paolo di Cinisello Balsamo in 2018.
8 Elon Musk is a wealthy entrepreneur who is a naturalized American citizen with Canadian citizenship, although he was born in Pretoria (South Africa) in 1971. Through Starlink, a constellation of satellites, he provides high-speed internet to the entire planet. According to Forbes (23 January 2026), he is the richest person in the world. His father was South African of British origin. His grandfather, Joshua Norman Haldeman (1902-1974), was an activist in the "Technocratic Movement," which advocated replacing the elected Canadian government with an elite of unelected engineers, even by force. He was a staunch supporter of South African and Rhodesian apartheid. Elon moved to Canada in 1989 and became an honorary US citizen in 2002. He provided Ukraine—during the war with Russia—with access to the Starlink satellite system in 2022, receiving public thanks from Zelensky. However, in May 2022 he switched to supporting Trump, including with large donations. In Italy, he supported the League and Brothers of Italy parties.
9 David Saks was born in 1972 and is a wealthy South African/American entrepreneur who invests in information technology companies. He has invested in PayPal, Palantir, Facebook, and Uber. In 2024, Trump appointed him "White House Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency Czar." Saks is of Jewish origin and emigrated with his family from South Africa to North America in 1977. He remains very close to Trump and is a close associate of Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. He has spoken out against US involvement in the Ukrainian war and its funding by the US government. He even acknowledged that NATO provoked Russia into invading Ukraine.
10 Brunello Cucinelli was born in Castel Rigone (PG) in 1953. He is a renowned Italian fashion designer and wealthy entrepreneur, having founded the fashion house "Brunello Cucinelli" in Solomeo, Umbria, in 1978. He holds a degree in surveying. His "philosophy" is commonly defined as "humanistic or gentle capitalism," once called "with a human face," which seeks to reconcile profit with human dignity, following the teachings of Pico della Mirandola and Marsilio Ficino in particular. He defines himself as a philanthropist dedicated to the restoration of ancient villages (Solomeo and Norcia). He is known for his commitment to the restoration of the Benedictine Monastery of Norcia, which stands above the birthplace of Saint Benedict, after the 2016 earthquake.