I am surprised that you do not mention some of the older school integralists. Many are still around and the influence of the deceased is still felt. An obvious example would be the late Michael Davies, though much of his writing was on other Catholic topics.
The long deceased Father Denis Fahey (+1954) may be making a minor comeback, mainly in his native Ireland. But the Internet can spread anyone's fame, though I suspect most people will now find Fahey's tomes nearly unreadable and further burdened with anti-Semitic tones. And there are other writers of Fahey's era who might be resurrected.
More recently we have Doctor Thomas Storck, with his 1998 Foundations of a Catholic Poitical Order and many other articles and essays. He is primarily a theorist on integralism. But even the theorists can't avoid strategy completely. They feel forced to come up with at least a few answers to practical questions and usually come seriously unstuck at that point.
Hence the appendix in "Foundations" describing the fictional country of Ruritania, an island way out in some ocean remote from any neighbours. Storck is very conscious of the corrupting influence of England on what used to be 90% Catholic Ireland. BBC TV could be picked up in parts of Eire long before Irish TV was created. But even after abolishing its own TV service, you can see that Ruritania's woes are just beginning. Abolishing fossil fuels and drastically rationing the hydro electricity supply come next, along with sacking and/or exiling subversive teachers. None of this is going to work.... Maybe if you tried integralism before the Greta Thunberg zealotry?? But that probably wouldn't save it.
The "left integralists" were very much aligned with the others (strategist and theorist both) for several years after 2016. The break between the two camps happened in 2020.
Oh? Many of the people I interviewed indicated Trump 2016 was the inflection point, including some of the ex-integralists. But I could be wrong about that. All I could go on is what people told me during interviews.
There were two major splits in this space; the first was the breakup of the Tradinista project, which did take place in 2016-17, but the participants in that movement generally referred to themselves as Catholic socialists or illiberals rather than integralists. One of the ex-Tradinista factions went on to identify with integralism (which I believe started to gain popularity after Pater Edmund's "Integralism in Three Sentences" post in 2016) from the aftermath of the Tradinista split through 2019 or so.
The second major break happened in 2020 between the left (often ex-Tradinista or affiliated with them) and right-integralists (including the strategists and theorists mentioned in this post) because of Covid, BLM protests, and the Biden/Trump election. This led a number of the left-integralists to stop calling themselves integralists at all and even to declare themselves liberals (which they previously abhorred).
I was around for almost all of this and recall it in a level of detail that is honestly somewhat embarrassing. Happy to discuss at greater length if you wish.
Ah, well, looks like I should have interviewed more people. I thought the Tradinista project began in part as a reaction to right-integralism and their general support for Trump. Is that false?
They were concerned somewhat with proto-right-integralism, but their concern was much more with Weigel/Novak/Neuhaus-style neoconservative Catholicism. The integralist theorists were around and had some critiques of the Tradinista project, but they were generally not pro-Trump, and most of the strategists were yet to come on the scene (Vermeule had just converted, Ahmari had just converted and still an avowed neocon, Deneen was a post-liberal but not yet an integralist).
The shift to Trump support and active alliance with right-wing politics among integralists (or at least the strategists) was mostly a later development.
I knew the theorists weren’t pro-Trump. And I knew the left was more concerned with Whig Thomism. But now it looks like a small section of my book has the history wrong. I can’t change the printed copies, but I can change online and the second run of the books. I wanted to say something simple. Trump led to the left integralists splitting off but they collapsed, leaving the right behind to begin to build the movement on Twitter, the Josias, and the like, such that by 2018-2019, the right-integralist strategists were the main public influencers, especially once Vermeule and Ahmari got involved.
But you’re saying that Trump was not a major event in the split between left and right. Is that right?
Trump was a factor, but it was Trump 2020 rather than Trump 2016, so you still have that angle if you want it.
Here's how I'd amend your history: After the Tradinista movement (centered around Weird Catholic Twitter) splintered, several of its members (most prominently Kevin and Jose, although there were others) cast their lot with integralism, which had gradually come into its own as an identity in the mid-2010's. They remained avowed socialists, but throughout 2018 and 2019 they worked with the theorists and strategists to spread the movement on twitter and in long-form writing. For example, they enthusiastically received "Before Church and State" and "Why Liberalism Failed," they defended the infamous First Things essay on Mortara (and claimed Rusty Reno was compromised by his Jewish wife after it was retracted), they argued for state punishment (including death) for heresy, they first fought with Ahmari (whom they dubbed "The Persian" after his Iranian heritage and then-hawkish foreign policy) and then lauded his "Against David French-ism." In terms of actual essays, there was Kevin's in American Affairs on the eclipse of fusionism, Jose's in Fare Forward on the common good, the launch of The Lamp, and the March 2018 political Thomism conference at Harvard.
Differences with the right-integralists began to emerge, first over the theoretical role of Schmitt (which went all the way back to Vermeule and AWJ's mutual misgivings about "Before Church and State,"), the 2019 British election, where the right-integralists applauded Boris's landslide victory while the left-integralists rooted for Corbyn, and the left-integralists' support for Sanders in the 2020 primary. Things reached a breaking point with debates over Covid lockdowns (many of the right-integralists saw it as state overreach designed to punish the religious, left-integralists thought they were necessary for public health), the protests after George Floyd's death (right-wing thought they were riots that needed to be crushed, left-wing thought they were justified and the violence was negligible), and the 2020 election (needs no explanation).
In the aftermath of this schism, many of the left-integralists abandoned their anti-liberalism altogether and became outright supporters of Biden and the liberal democratic order, while the right-integralists (or at least the strategists) continued to actively identify with right-wing political movements, though as you say they're rarely interested in speaking to anyone who doesn't already agree with them on everything (if anything, Ahmari is something of an exception, with his work at Compact and new book).
I hope that all makes sense, and I can try to fill in any blanks if it doesn't. Honored that you're contemplating updating the book because of my substack comments.
I am surprised that you do not mention some of the older school integralists. Many are still around and the influence of the deceased is still felt. An obvious example would be the late Michael Davies, though much of his writing was on other Catholic topics.
The long deceased Father Denis Fahey (+1954) may be making a minor comeback, mainly in his native Ireland. But the Internet can spread anyone's fame, though I suspect most people will now find Fahey's tomes nearly unreadable and further burdened with anti-Semitic tones. And there are other writers of Fahey's era who might be resurrected.
More recently we have Doctor Thomas Storck, with his 1998 Foundations of a Catholic Poitical Order and many other articles and essays. He is primarily a theorist on integralism. But even the theorists can't avoid strategy completely. They feel forced to come up with at least a few answers to practical questions and usually come seriously unstuck at that point.
Hence the appendix in "Foundations" describing the fictional country of Ruritania, an island way out in some ocean remote from any neighbours. Storck is very conscious of the corrupting influence of England on what used to be 90% Catholic Ireland. BBC TV could be picked up in parts of Eire long before Irish TV was created. But even after abolishing its own TV service, you can see that Ruritania's woes are just beginning. Abolishing fossil fuels and drastically rationing the hydro electricity supply come next, along with sacking and/or exiling subversive teachers. None of this is going to work.... Maybe if you tried integralism before the Greta Thunberg zealotry?? But that probably wouldn't save it.
The "left integralists" were very much aligned with the others (strategist and theorist both) for several years after 2016. The break between the two camps happened in 2020.
Oh? Many of the people I interviewed indicated Trump 2016 was the inflection point, including some of the ex-integralists. But I could be wrong about that. All I could go on is what people told me during interviews.
There were two major splits in this space; the first was the breakup of the Tradinista project, which did take place in 2016-17, but the participants in that movement generally referred to themselves as Catholic socialists or illiberals rather than integralists. One of the ex-Tradinista factions went on to identify with integralism (which I believe started to gain popularity after Pater Edmund's "Integralism in Three Sentences" post in 2016) from the aftermath of the Tradinista split through 2019 or so.
The second major break happened in 2020 between the left (often ex-Tradinista or affiliated with them) and right-integralists (including the strategists and theorists mentioned in this post) because of Covid, BLM protests, and the Biden/Trump election. This led a number of the left-integralists to stop calling themselves integralists at all and even to declare themselves liberals (which they previously abhorred).
I was around for almost all of this and recall it in a level of detail that is honestly somewhat embarrassing. Happy to discuss at greater length if you wish.
Ah, well, looks like I should have interviewed more people. I thought the Tradinista project began in part as a reaction to right-integralism and their general support for Trump. Is that false?
They were concerned somewhat with proto-right-integralism, but their concern was much more with Weigel/Novak/Neuhaus-style neoconservative Catholicism. The integralist theorists were around and had some critiques of the Tradinista project, but they were generally not pro-Trump, and most of the strategists were yet to come on the scene (Vermeule had just converted, Ahmari had just converted and still an avowed neocon, Deneen was a post-liberal but not yet an integralist).
The shift to Trump support and active alliance with right-wing politics among integralists (or at least the strategists) was mostly a later development.
I knew the theorists weren’t pro-Trump. And I knew the left was more concerned with Whig Thomism. But now it looks like a small section of my book has the history wrong. I can’t change the printed copies, but I can change online and the second run of the books. I wanted to say something simple. Trump led to the left integralists splitting off but they collapsed, leaving the right behind to begin to build the movement on Twitter, the Josias, and the like, such that by 2018-2019, the right-integralist strategists were the main public influencers, especially once Vermeule and Ahmari got involved.
But you’re saying that Trump was not a major event in the split between left and right. Is that right?
Trump was a factor, but it was Trump 2020 rather than Trump 2016, so you still have that angle if you want it.
Here's how I'd amend your history: After the Tradinista movement (centered around Weird Catholic Twitter) splintered, several of its members (most prominently Kevin and Jose, although there were others) cast their lot with integralism, which had gradually come into its own as an identity in the mid-2010's. They remained avowed socialists, but throughout 2018 and 2019 they worked with the theorists and strategists to spread the movement on twitter and in long-form writing. For example, they enthusiastically received "Before Church and State" and "Why Liberalism Failed," they defended the infamous First Things essay on Mortara (and claimed Rusty Reno was compromised by his Jewish wife after it was retracted), they argued for state punishment (including death) for heresy, they first fought with Ahmari (whom they dubbed "The Persian" after his Iranian heritage and then-hawkish foreign policy) and then lauded his "Against David French-ism." In terms of actual essays, there was Kevin's in American Affairs on the eclipse of fusionism, Jose's in Fare Forward on the common good, the launch of The Lamp, and the March 2018 political Thomism conference at Harvard.
Differences with the right-integralists began to emerge, first over the theoretical role of Schmitt (which went all the way back to Vermeule and AWJ's mutual misgivings about "Before Church and State,"), the 2019 British election, where the right-integralists applauded Boris's landslide victory while the left-integralists rooted for Corbyn, and the left-integralists' support for Sanders in the 2020 primary. Things reached a breaking point with debates over Covid lockdowns (many of the right-integralists saw it as state overreach designed to punish the religious, left-integralists thought they were necessary for public health), the protests after George Floyd's death (right-wing thought they were riots that needed to be crushed, left-wing thought they were justified and the violence was negligible), and the 2020 election (needs no explanation).
In the aftermath of this schism, many of the left-integralists abandoned their anti-liberalism altogether and became outright supporters of Biden and the liberal democratic order, while the right-integralists (or at least the strategists) continued to actively identify with right-wing political movements, though as you say they're rarely interested in speaking to anyone who doesn't already agree with them on everything (if anything, Ahmari is something of an exception, with his work at Compact and new book).
I hope that all makes sense, and I can try to fill in any blanks if it doesn't. Honored that you're contemplating updating the book because of my substack comments.