10 Common Good Constitutionalism

The claims about the truth, the good and the beautiful all wrapped in a frame of common good constitutionalism is perhaps the most bizarre of all the supposed intellectual --- hopefully based in serious and systematic inquiry – claims of the MAGA New Right. Somehow banning empathy-with the other --- except for the dark empathy within the MAGA New Right --- is going to lead to realizing the common good. Governor DeSantis has been claiming that the Florida education system had to be refocused on supporting the search for the common good, as though only the MAGA New Right even knows what it means, and is the only frame that can deliver it. The focus immediately shifts to Adrian Vermeule and his book Common Good Constitutionalism (2022).

Common Good Constitutionalism is Good for Conservative Conservatives

The big problem with said Common Good framing shows here (Field 2025, p. 228):  “…Vermeule argued in a … First Things article called ‘A Christian Strategy’ that liberalism saves its ‘deepest enmity’ for the Blessed Virgin … (going on) to suggest, pointing to Genesis 3:15 and Revelation 12:1–9, that the ‘true identity’ of liberalism (i.e., left-wing framing, as in the Liberals) is aligned with Satan.”  DIT clarifies such a claim is totally lacking in empirical content, as Vermeule gets to said place by presuming the Common Good can only come out of old religious books and claims, in particular extremely Conservative Catholic claims that the moral and ethical dimension comes from a supernatural, God-source that cannot be questioned. 

So, any left-wing counter to it --- even when based in serious and systematic inquiry, robust data collection and null hypotheses testing --- is the work of the entity that opposes God, i.e., Satan.  Balderdash.  The claim is a form of cargo-cult, make-believe, unfounded belief in divine intervention and dictums.   It does not work in the face of reality.  

Now, does it mean moral and ethical claims coming from religions are of no accord? No, it does not. The shared other-interest of DIT reflects content coming from many sources, including religion, but also from a lot of talk, talk, talk among reasoned people looking for sufficient reason (after Bromley, ??) to put that content into the ever evolving shared other-interest. The Common Good is an evolving Good, and cannot be taken out of an old set of religious claims, like the Vermeule favorite reflected in Catholic Integralism.  Also, it especially cannot be imposed on people as Vermeule (and the MAGA New Right) wants to do through the reintegration of church & state, using the Unitary Executive Power frame.

Ancient Catholic Integralism Drawing on Old Religious Books is to Play

Catholic Integralism “… dates back to the antiliberal and antimodern movements of the eighteenth through twentieth centuries in Europe… (in more recent years focused on) how the church could continue to function politically in the modern era given the rise of secularism … (leading to)  a radical political faction (now referred to as neo-integralism) dedicated to turning the US government into a Catholic state … (the neo-integralists) believe that the government must serve both earthly and spiritual ends—as opposed to the liberal state, which (they hold) serves only much lower earthly purposes (Field 2025, pp. 228-230).” Using DIT,  perhaps some influence from God (if there is such a thing) is essential, but to rely only on said God for the content of the shared other-interest seems without empirical merit.

For starters, the neo-integralists seek “ to amplify the power of the faithful within the parameters of the institutional and cultural status quo: to staff the federal bureaucracy, to put integralists in positions of high executive authority, and to install them throughout the judiciary (Field 2025, pp. 230-231).” Eventually, all Common Good must emanate from and reflect Catholic religious framing, the Church framing everything the Government --- and we might suppose, the Market --- does. So, any form of Progressive Constitutionalism, as in a Living, Dynamic Constitution striving to provide for the Common Good is replaced by a rigid etched in ancient stone Common Good Constitution defined by the bible and interpretations of it by the Catholics.  Not even the Originalism Constitution, another etched in stone frame, but with less attachment to Catholic claims, works for the neo-integralist.

Nazi Political Philosopher Carl Schmitt is Highly Respected

It seems Vermeule has also drawn on the Nazi political philosopher Carl Schmitt, who according to Field, has seen a kind of come back embraced by the New Right, as well as some on the extreme Left. Schmitt was clearly illiberal, claiming (classical) liberalism would always lead to a weak state, which could only be fixed with a strong leader, which is why Schmitt turned to Hitler.

And, in all said cases, including Carl Schmitt’s claims about the inherent flaws of liberalism always leading to a weak state, and the Post-Liberal critique of liberalism and flawed solutions is this (I admit to asking Chat GPT for some help here, so putting it quotes), as supporting and reflecting the DIT claim that one has to distinguish Liberalism as in what the “the Libs, the Left” do, and the critique of  that kind of Liberalism by the New Right, as it gets confused with Classical Liberalism which is something quite different, so make it DIT clear:  “What failed was not Classical Liberalism, but the abandonment of its core insight: That self-interest must be continually tempered by shared moral concern through institutions that cultivate empathy and restraint. The New Right’s revolt mistakes a failure of practice for a failure of principle—and risks replacing moral neglect with moral monopoly.”

Also, then, the Liberal defense also fails, as it pays too attention to the moral and ethical dimension, and goes too far in downplaying a possible role for some influence from religion.  Both Left-wing and Right-wing framing in extreme form fail to define the real problem, and, therefore, fail in providing any solution to it. As DIT makes clear, the real problem is the failure to find ways to take Road 0Z, striking good balance from paying attention to both the ego-based self-interest Road 0G (favored by the Right) and the empathy-with (woke) shared other-interest Road 0M.  

Schmit Political Philosophy Points Down a Road to Authoritarian Nationalism

Also, imposing some Road like in the Authoritarian Nationalism favored by Carl Schmitt, and the same kind of imposition but now using a kind of Authoritarian Christian Nationalism as favored by too many Postliberals (Deneen, Vermeule especially), well, that also does not work. Road 0Z must evolve in an inclusive Democracy with widespread participation by We the People.  It cannot be an Us-Road which leaves the Them behind, or bulldozes the Them off the road. Unitary Executive Power favored by the MAGA New Right will simply not work.

To emphasize, Vermeules Common Good Constitutionalism (laid out in the book with that title) is “ a counter to the two reigning modes of interpretation in the contemporary American tradition (originalism and progressive “living” constitutionalism) …  Vermeule (instead) argued that the aim of legal interpretation is ‘to promote the common good.’ This approach allows for more interpretive latitude than originalism (Vermeule claims that originalists are beset by a needless ‘horror of judgment,’ meaning they are afraid to moralize and adjudicate what is right or wrong), but it is narrower in scope than liberal ‘living’ constitutionalism (Field 2025, p. 236).”  Narrow in scope, indeed: The Common Good cannot be  defined and evolved by We the People --- who want to keep some of the Original intent, but also see the need to work with an evolving Living Constitution --- as the real Constitution frames, but rather according to Vermeule must be determined by a hierarchy of authoritarians running a vertical power, joint church & state.  Field goes on to argue that Vermeule is heavy on control by the church & state and light on the role of liberty and freedom for ordinary people.

Intriguingly, even Left-wing thinkers got in on the conversation about Common Good Constitutionalism, making issues on the Left part of consideration for what is the shared good, as DIT would frame it:  “A common good constitutionalism will be the only constitutionalism that has a chance against challenges like climate change, rolling pandemics, economic injustice, racial and gender injustice, uncontrolled technological change, advancing oligarchy, and recrudescing white Christian nationalism in the United States (Field 2025, p. 244).”  Unfortunately, the MAGA New Right Common Good is “to replace toleration, pluralism, and democratic contestation with their own monolithic and hierarchical conception of what is true and meaningful (Field 2025, p. 244).”

And, on the radicalizing of Deneen, who started with “Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option—the idea that people of faith should isolate themselves from the broader liberal culture, at least as a preliminary step, if they wanted to preserve their communities against modern decadence and decay… (and moved to) ‘I think we really have to adopt the mentality and the view that we have to win. We don’t just want to coexist. We have to win’ …  then publishes the Regime Change book, arguing for ‘common-good conservatism,’ which involves a revival of Aristotelian ‘mixed constitutionalism,’ and something he called ‘Aristopopulism,’ which means rule by a new and better class of elites … an overtly Christian state.”  So much for classical liberalism as the likes of Adam Smith had in mind, and DIT clarifies does not see a ruling class of Aristopopulists but rather sees the freedom and liberty, dignity and opportunity for all ordinary people like classical liberalism pointed to, and the 1787 Constitution frames as a real possibility.  In contrast, even Machiavellian violence to impose a hierarchical social and economic order seems to tolerated by Deneen.

Postliberals Have Less Influence than the Claremonters and National Conservatives

Field goes on to point out that the Postliberals have also had the least influence on the New Right, which is dominated by the Claremonters and the National Conservatives.  Also, while all in on using a more vertical power authoritarian imposition of moral values on the “them” as are other two groups, the Postliberals are more into helping the working class on the economic front. Ironically, so was the Biden Administration, far more than the Trump Administration.

As fellow Postliberal Julius Krein said as early as 2020, Field (2025, p. 247) quoting Krein:  “For all the talk of Trump as a tribune of the working class—including from the president himself … … administration never really strayed from Republican orthodoxy on conventional labor issues (and referring to another Postliberal, Gladden Pappin) … the conservative turn toward genuine economic populism was something of a mirage, unlikely to come to fruition… (and another Postliberal, Ahmari said it):  ‘I was wrong. The GOP will never be the party of the working class … every real economic problem reduced to wokeness.’”  Yes, indeed.  It is truly a mirage, all built with total disregard for the truth claims during the 2024 Election campaign, and it has continued everyday since the day of the inauguration on January 20, 2025.  Like Frankfurt would characterize what is going on regarding truly helping the working class: All bullshit. And, empathy-with --- being woke, being aware of working class problems, well, not on the radar screen of the Trump Administration, who has banned empathy of all kinds.

And, intriguingly, Ahmari has had an awakening, and made a pretty hard break with the rest of MAGA New Right.  “Ahmari was the only New Right commentator I know of who came out strongly, in writing, against the Hard Right around this time. To his credit, Deneen did warn against Bronze Age Pervert in public talks. But Ahmari really went for it. In the pages of the New Statesman in 2023, he dubbed them the ‘Unabomber Right,’ naming figures like Raw Egg Nationalist, Bronze Age Pervert, and L0m3z.104 He was also a strong and regular critic of Elon Musk’s antiworker policies, as well as his takeover of Twitter (calling X a ‘cesspool’). He would write that DeSantis’s campaign in the GOP presidential primary failed because it was too online, too rigid, and too weird; DeSantis, he wrote, was too much ‘the darling of the intellectual right.’ Ahmari would continue this campaign against the ‘barbarian right’ through 2024, as the power and visibility of the Hard Right continued to grow. It was lonely work.”  Lonely work, indeed.