@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2) format("woff2"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff) format("woff"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf) format("truetype");font-weight:300;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2) format("woff2"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff) format("woff"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.ttf) format("truetype");font-weight:300;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff2) format("woff2"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff) format("woff"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.ttf) format("truetype");font-weight:400;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff2) format("woff2"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff) format("woff"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.ttf) format("truetype");font-weight:400;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff2) format("woff2"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff) format("woff"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.ttf) format("truetype");font-weight:500;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff2) format("woff2"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff) format("woff"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.ttf) format("truetype");font-weight:500;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff2) format("woff2"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff) format("woff"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.ttf) format("truetype");font-weight:600;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff2) format("woff2"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff) format("woff"),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.ttf) format("truetype");font-weight:600;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https:This CSS defines font faces for Guardian Headline Full and Guardian Titlepiece, with various weights and styles, and sets layout rules for interactive content columns. The main column has left margins of 160px on wider screens and 240px on even wider ones. Atoms are capped at 620px, or full width on small screens. Showcase elements have no left margin and max widths of 620px or 860px depending on screen size. Immersive elements are capped at 1100px, with special full-bleed positioning on small screens, a slight left shift and extra width on medium screens, and adjusted margins and widths on larger screens up to 1260px. Paragraphs and lists are limited to 620px, and a pseudo-element is positioned absolutely at the top with a height slightly beyond the container and a minimum height of 100px.Here is the text rewritten in fluent, natural English:
```
.content__main-column--interactive:before {
border-left: 1px solid #dcdcdc;
z-index: -1;
left: -10px;
}
@media (min-width: 81.25em) {
.content__main-column--interactive:before {
border-left: 1px solid #dcdcdc;
left: -11px;
}
}
.content__main-column--interactive .element-atom {
margin-top: 0;
margin-bottom: 0;
padding-bottom: 12px;
padding-top: 12px;
}
.content__main-column--interactive p + .element-atom {
padding-top: 0;
padding-bottom: 0;
margin-top: 12px;
margin-bottom: 12px;
}
.content__main-column--interactive .element-inline {
max-width: 620px;
}
@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
figure[data-spacefinder-role=inline].element {
max-width: 620px;
}
}
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.loop) figure.loop figcaption:not(.hidden) {
z-index: 6;
}
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.loop) figure.loop button[data-link-name*=gu-video-loop] {
align-self: flex-end;
margin-bottom: 40px;
margin-right: 3px;
}
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.loop) figure.loop .controls-container div:has(button[data-testid=unmute-icon]),
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.loop) figure.loop .controls-container div:has(button[data-testid=mute-icon]) {
right: 0;
padding-left: 10px;
}
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.loop) #caption-button {
z-index: 100;
}
@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.loop) #caption-button {
bottom: 20px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 46.25em) {
[data-gu-name=media]:has(figure.cinemagraph) .cinemagraph > div {
max-height: unset;
}
}
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo] {
width: 100%;
max-width: 620px;
display: block;
margin-top: 12px;
margin-bottom: 12px;
}
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo] figure.loop,
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo] figure.loop video {
width: 100%;
height: auto;
max-width: 620px;
margin: 0 auto;
}
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo]:has(figure.loop.element-video-immersive) {
max-width: unset;
margin: 12px 0;
}
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo]:has(figure.loop.element-video-immersive) figure.loop,
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo]:has(figure.loop.element-video-immersive) figure.loop video {
max-width: unset;
margin: 0;
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo]:has(figure.loop.element-video-immersive) {
width: 1140px;
margin-left: -180px;
}
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo]:has(figure.loop.element-video-immersive) figure figcaption {
margin-left: 20px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 81.25em) {
[data-gu-name=body] gu-island[name=SelfHostedVideo]:has(figure.loop.element-video-immersive) {
width: 1300px;
margin-left: -260px;
}
}
:root {
--dateline: #606060;
--headerBorder: #dcdcdc;
--captionText: #999;
--captionBackground: hsla(0, 0%, 7%, .72);
--feature: #c70000;
--new-pillar-colour: var(--primary-pillar, var(--feature));
}
:root:root {
--subheading-text: var(--secondary-pillar);
--pullquote-text: var(--secondary-pillar);
--pullquote-icon: var(--secondary-pillar);
--block-quote-text: var(--article-text);
}
:root:root blockquote {
--block-quote-fill: var(--secondary-pillar);
}
@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
:root:root:not([data-color-scheme=light]) {
--subheading-text: var(--darkmode-pillar);
--pullquote-text: var(--darkmode-pillar);
--pullquote-icon: var(--darkmode-pillar);
}
:root:root:not([data-color-scheme=light]) blockquote {
--block-quote-fill: var(--darkmode-pillar);
}
}
.content__main-column--interactive .element.element-atom,
.element.element-atom {
padding: 0;
}
.content__main-column--interactive .element-atom:first-of-type + p:first-of-type,
.content__main-column--interactive .element-atom:first-of-type + .sign-in-gate + p:first-of-type,
.content__main-column--interactive .element-atom:first-of-type + #sign-in-gate + p:first-of-type,
.content__main-column--interactive .element-atom:first-of-type + .element-atom + p:first-of-type,
.content__main-column--interactive hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule) + p,
.content__main-column--interactive hr:not(.last-horizontal-rule) + .ad-slot-container + p,
#article-body > div .element-atom:first-of-type + p:first-of-type,
#article-body > div .element-atom:first-of-type + .sign-in-gate + p:first-of-type,
#article-body > div .element-atom:first-of-type + #sign-in-gate + p:first-of-type,
#article-body > div .element-atom:first-of-type + .element-atom + p:first-of-type,
#article-body > div hr
```The provided text is CSS code, not prose, so it cannot be rewritten into fluent English while keeping the meaning intact. If you'd like, I can explain what the CSS selectors do in plain English.This CSS styles the first letter of paragraphs that follow certain elements, creating a drop cap effect. The first letter uses the Guardian Headline font at 111px size with 92px line height, floats left, is uppercase, and has an 8px right margin. The color is set by a CSS variable.
It also removes top padding from paragraphs that follow horizontal rules, limits pull quotes to 620px wide, and adjusts figure captions in showcase elements to be static and full-width up to 620px. On wider screens (71.25em and up), captions become absolutely positioned with a max width of 140px, increasing to 220px on screens 81.25em and wider.
Immersive elements span the full viewport width minus the scrollbar. On smaller screens they're capped at 978px with inline padding of 10px, or 20px on screens between 30em and 71.24em. Between 46.25em and 61.24em they're capped at 738px. Below 46.24em they shift left by 10px (or 20px on screens 30em and up) with no right margin.
On screens 71.25em and wider, showcase figures in the body get a -160px left margin, and on screens 81.25em and wider the same applies to figures in interactive main columns.This is CSS code, not prose, so there's no natural English to rewrite. If you'd like, I can explain what this stylesheet does in plain English.The provided text is CSS code, not prose, so there is no meaning to preserve or simplify in natural English. If you'd like, I can instead explain what this stylesheet does in plain English, or reformat/clean up the CSS itself.r(--darkModeFeature) ) !important;--headerBorderColor: #606060;--darkModeFeature: #ff5943;--darkBackground: #1a1a1a}nav+section{display:none}nav+aside{display:none}aside+section{display:none}.furniture-wrapper{background-color:var(--darkBackground);margin:0 -10px;padding:0 10px 4px}@media (min-width: 30em){.furniture-wrapper{margin:0 -20px;padding:0 20px 8px}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper{padding:0 20px}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){.furniture-wrapper:before{content:"";width:calc((100vw - 1298px)/2);height:100%;position:absolute;left:calc((100vw - 1298px)/-2);background-color:var(--darkBackground);border-right:1px solid var(--headerBorderColor)}.furniture-wrapper:after{content:"";width:calc((100vw - 1298px)/2);height:100%;position:absolute;right:calc((100vw - 1298px)/-2);background-color:var(--darkBackground)}}.furniture-wrapper .article-header,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=title] a,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=title] span{color:var(--new-pillar-colour, --darkModeFeature)}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper #headline>div:first-child,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline]>div:first-child,.furniture-wrapper .headline>div:first-child{border-top:1px solid var(--headerBorderColor)}}.furniture-wrapper #headline h1,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] h1,.furniture-wrapper .headline h1{font-weight:700;color:#dcdcdc}.furniture-wrapper #headline figure,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] figure,.furniture-wrapper .headline figure{margin-top:0;margin-bottom:2px}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.furniture-wrapper #meta:before,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta]:before{background-color:var(--headerBorderColor)}}.furniture-wrapper #meta details,.furniture-wrapper #meta summary,.furniture-wrapper #meta summary span,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] details,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] summary,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] summary span{color:#dcdcdc}.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social a,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social button,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social a,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social button{border-color:var(--headerBorderColor);color:var(--new-pillar-colour, --darkModeFeature)}.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social a svg,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social button svg,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social a svg,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social button svg{fill:var(--new-pillar-colour, --darkModeFeature)}.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social a:hover,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social button:hover,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social a:hover,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social button:hover{color:var(--darkBackground);background-color:var(--new-pillar-colour, --darkModeFeature)}.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social a:hover svg,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social button:hover svg,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social a:hover svg,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social button:hover svg{fill:var(--darkBackground)}.furniture-wrapper #meta div,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] div{color:#dcdcdc}.furniture-wrapper #meta a,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] a{color:var(--new-pillar-colour, --darkModeFeature)}.furniture-wrapper #meta a:hover,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] a:hover{color:var(--new-pillar-colour, --darkModeFeature);text-decoration-color:var(--new-pillar-colour, --darkModeFeature)}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,.furniture-wrapper .standfirst li a,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst a,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst li a,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] a,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] li a{border-bottom:none;color:var(--new-pillar-colour, --darkModeFeature);background-image:none!important;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:6px;text-decoration-color:var(--headerBorder, #dcdcdc);text-decoration-thickness:1px}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst a:hover,.furniture-wrapper .standfirst li a:hover,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst a:hover,.furniture-wrapper #standfHere is the text rewritten in fluent, natural English:
The following CSS rules apply to links inside list items within the standfirst and furniture wrapper: on hover, they should have no bottom border, and the text decoration color should use the new pillar colour or the dark mode feature colour.
Paragraphs inside the standfirst and furniture wrapper should have a text color of #dcdcdc. On screens at least 61.25em wide, the first paragraph gets a top border using the header border color. On screens at least 71.25em wide, that top border is removed.
List items inside the standfirst and furniture wrapper should also have a text color of #dcdcdc. On screens at least 71.25em wide, the standfirst's before pseudo-element should use the header border color as its background.
On screens at least 46.25em wide, the furniture wrapper gets before and after pseudo-elements. Both are full height, positioned at the top, and use the dark background color. The before element sits on the left with a right border in the header border color, while the after element sits on the right with a left border in the header border color. Their widths and offsets are calculated from the viewport width minus the scrollbar width and a fixed content width, divided by two.
At wider breakpoints (61.25em, 71.25em, and 81.25em), these pseudo-elements keep the same structure, but the fixed content width used in the calculation increases to 978px, 1138px, and 1298px respectively.
SVG icons in the keyline-4 and lines elements should be stroked with the header border color. The social and comment elements in the meta section, including link spans inside the social list, should use the header border color for their borders.
In article body and interactive article body sections, h2 headings should have a font weight of 200. If an h2 contains a strong element, it should instead have a font weight of 700.
Unordered lists marked to be hidden in print layout should have no background image.
When the rendering target is set to apps, several custom properties are defined: the follow text and standfirst text colors are #dcdcdc; the follow icon fill, standfirst link text, standfirst link border, and byline use the new pillar colour; the article meta lines use the header border color; and the byline also uses the dark mode pillar colour.
In that same apps rendering mode, byline spans should use the new pillar colour. A byline span containing a div immediately followed by a FollowWapper element should get a background image made of the header border color, a 1px header border color, and a transparent 1px.
Finally, a media query for prefers-color-scheme begins but is cut off.Espresso Embassy, a third-wave coffee shop in Budapest's diplomatic and government district, is where visiting reporters and academics come to discuss politics. On my way in for morning coffee on 18 March, I passed a poster for Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party that had been defaced with a marker pen: "the safe choice" had become "the certain way to get fucked." Across the cafe, I spotted the American journalist and historian Anne Applebaum deep in conversation, possibly with a source. I heard someone exclaim: "Just like Mussolini!" It was election season in Hungary.
It was also a couple of days before Cpac Hungary, a satellite event of the US-based conservative conference. As members of the international right arrived in town, the notorious Orbánist thinktank known as the Danube Institute was hosting an event called On Censorship, Tolerance, the Left and God. The official line would be: bad, good, bad, good.
After dark, I walked along the walls of Buda Castle and past the Jesuit stairs to the institute. The featured speakers were Dave Rubin, an American podcaster from the so-called "intellectual dark web," and Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a Dutch provocateur who claimed the title "shieldmaiden of the far right" on her X profile. "You don't realise how good you have it" in Hungary, Rubin said. "So many things are wrong across the west." After the panel, an American man introduced himself to me and asked how long I'd been in Budapest. Had I ever considered dual citizenship? If so, he could help. "My friends," he said, "call me the Harriet Tubman of white people."
For the previous few months, I'd been hanging around the Danube Institute and other state-subsidised gathering places, trying to pass as yet another member of the rightwing intelligentsia making his pilgrimage to Budapest. Founded in 2013 with state funds redirected by the Orbán government, the institute had become known as the central hub of the emerging "postliberal" movement, a loose coalition of heterodox conservative thinkers frequently associated with the idiosyncratic American blogger and self-styled Christian dissident Rod Dreher. During Dreher's first fellowship term at the Danube Institute in 2021, he helped arrange Tucker Carlson's weeklong press junket in Hungary, which featured a fawning Fox News interview with Orbán. Since then, liberal publications such as the New York Times, the New Yorker and the Atlantic have dispatched journalists to grill Dreher about the institute and his relationship to Orbán's autocratic regime. This produced a series of breathless reports that showcased the small thinktank as a clearinghouse for dangerous illiberal ideas. As Applebaum wrote in her book Twilight of Democracy: "The Danube Institute exists, in practice, to make the Hungarian government presentable to the outside world."
In Applebaum's view, the Orbán regime had "created a political system in which no opposition party could possibly win," and the foreign intellectuals at the Danube Institute were either cynical propagandists or naive stooges for Orbán's anti-democratic project. But soon, Orbán would be out of power, ousted in a landslide election in April, and in June the new Hungarian parliament would pass a constitutional amendment dismantling the patronage system that funds the Danube Institute, as well as MCC Brussels, a training ground for Fidesz elites.
It was end times for the postliberals in Budapest, even if they didn't know it yet. What will survive the demise of the so-called Budapest scene is a fractured group of rightwing thinkers who, whatever their fate in Hungary, will continue to hold a frightening level of influence over US political culture. If they were ever Orbán's puppets, they aren't any more. But rReducing them to unthinking servants of one particular strongman has made it harder to confront the real threat of postliberal ideas – or the crisis they are responding to. Officially, I was in Budapest to write a book about the western intellectuals who travelled to Hungary to meet the dissident opposition during the final years of the communist era. My family and I were guests of the Institute for Advanced Study, which had once been called the Collegium Budapest before the Orbán government effectively closed it in 2011. Now reopened, it was part of the remnant of Central European University that still remained in Hungary. The rest of the institution had been forced to move to Vienna during a prolonged campaign against George Soros and Hungary's independent civil society. At the start of this year, I made it my half-ironic mission to infiltrate the Danube Institute. I really did want to see what was actually going on inside this thinktank that had become known as the headquarters of the international postliberal project. Reaching it was not hard. It is housed in the Lónyay-Hatvany Villa, a refurbished building that had briefly served as an SS casino during the second world war and now housed a high-end restaurant on its main floor. One evening, I climbed a steep staircase dimly lit by iron sconces, the yellow light reflecting off wet stone, until I reached a narrow passage closed in by two high walls. Up ahead, I noticed a doorway marked only by a floor lamp on a small red carpet. I hesitated, then entered. View image in fullscreen Péter Magyar celebrates his Tisza party's victory in the Hungarian general election in April. Photograph: dts News Agency Germany/Shutterstock Straight in front of me was a dining room with a commanding view of the Danube. I snapped a few photos with my phone until I heard someone behind me on the stairs. I hurried into the basement annexe and reached a check-in table. I gave a young assistant my name, and she pointed towards a coat check. It turned out that infiltrating the Danube Institute just required online registration. In the brightly lit basement, a shelf offered complimentary issues of glossy rightwing journals such as The European Conservative and Hungarian Review. I picked up a copy of the then state-subsidised Hungarian Conservative with a painting by Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka on the cover; its title was Mysterious Island. The other guests were beginning to arrive, and I was immediately worried I'd been misled by a New Yorker piece on Dreher, in which he told a journalist that "the Danube Institute had a casual dress code" and he "could usually leave the suits at the apartment" even when meeting with ministers from Orbán's Fidesz party. But here was a parade of male intellectual fashion: ribbed turtlenecks; crocheted ties and silk cravats; blazers of tweed, linen and corduroy. I looked down at my rumpled blazer – the only one I own – and felt underdressed. In the months to come, I would jot down scraps of overheard conversation. Much of it was unsurprising, especially for anyone who had spent time on X: "We're going to interrogate him with truth serum", "No one is linking except Tucker", "Hitler would have gone broke on her OnlyFans", "Do you have a contact for Vance?" All the knowing gossip and memes were part of a game of one-upmanship among intellectuals who styled themselves as insiders. Still, there was something jarring about seeing this very online culture in the flesh. Most of the names they dropped were exactly the ones you'd expect. What did catch me off guard was how often I also heard them mention the names of the liberal journalists who had alerted me to the existence of the Danube Institute in the first place. If Hungary looms large for people like Applebaum, she, in turn, haunts the postliberal imagination; these guys all clearly read the Atlantic. "Anne Applebaum, I think she's great," I overheard one of the institute'sAs fellows wisecrack at the bar. "I really respect her." At the very first event I attended, a debate on How Non-Liberal Regimes Rule Through the Good Life, the main speaker referred to Applebaum as "persona non grata" at the Danube Institute. The postliberal economist Philip Pilkington responded: "I do find the descent into Applebaumism hilarious." Pilkington was referring to Applebaum's stubborn tendency to divide the world between liberal democracies and illiberal autocracies, between virtuous and corrupt elites. This "moral purity test" was not only hypocritical, he pointed out, it was intellectually unserious. According to Pilkington, it prevented liberal elites from accurately seeing themselves. The "crude" Applebaum analysis, he said, doesn't "have a good explanation of why liberalism is falling apart."
Part of the appeal of postliberalism is that it does provide an account of why it feels as though everything is falling apart: a liberal world order could never have turned out otherwise. At least this is Pilkington's view, as expressed in his 2025 book, The Collapse of Global Liberalism. Born in Ireland, Pilkington is a millennial former leftist who took a job in finance and then moved to Hungary, where until June he was employed at the Danube Institute and the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, then another Fidesz-aligned thinktank. For him, "liberalism is, in the final analysis, a dark and uncivilised philosophy of life that will destroy any civilisation it touches."
Equally comfortable making sweeping claims about "Marxian historical materialism" and offering hot takes about yoga pants as a symptom of civilisational decline, Pilkington argues that the drive to demolish all hierarchies is "self-undermining" and "self-destructive": "The reality is that equality does not exist in most spheres." Liberal capitalism, according to this line of thought, only ever appeared stable because it was built on a foundation of pre-liberal hierarchical structures, such as the church, family and classical legal traditions. Now it has become a victim of its own self-undermining success. As Pilkington puts it, "liberal capitalism" became "far too aggressive in its promotion of work and consumption and is undermining the building blocks on which the stability of society rests", namely "the family and the ability to reproduce the species."
The postliberal movement's foundational text is 2018's Why Liberalism Failed by the philosopher Patrick Deneen, another visitor to the Danube Institute. The title of Deneen's book captures the shared premise of all postliberal thought: that the historical period in which western societies were governed by a "regime of liberalism", as he put it elsewhere, has already reached a calamitous end. Whether that period began in 1989 with the fall of communist regimes in central and eastern Europe or 500 years ago with the Protestant reformation remains a matter of some obfuscation.
For postliberals, the collapse of liberalism was an inevitable outgrowth of its first principles: its anti-hierarchical commitment to formal equality, its faith in human progress and, above all, its emphasis on individual autonomy. In practice, Deneen argues, these values actually produced extreme economic inequality, spiritual debasement and a profound sense of unfreedom. "Liberalism has failed," he writes, "not because it fell short, but because it was true to itself."
View image in fullscreenArgentina's president, Javier Milei, on stage at Cpac Hungary in March. Photograph: Gergely Besenyei/AFP/Getty Images
At least initially, the postliberals seemed more solicitous of the populist masses than of the Republican old guard: they supported Donald Trump, who was then styling himself as a champion for a new working-class coalition against the elite establishment. Deneen and other postliberals claimed their goal was toThey sought to transcend the toxic left-right divide in US politics by positioning themselves as both allies of social democracy and enemies of corporate progressivism. Indeed, they insisted that the only way to defeat the disastrous post-Cold War alliance between neoliberal economics and neoconservative foreign policy was through a novel fusion of social-conservative values and left economic ideas. After postliberalism relocated to Hungary, it became more true to itself. The year after its publication, Why Liberalism Failed was translated into Hungarian, and Deneen met Orbán in Budapest. In the years after 2018, the Danube Institute and other regime-supported institutions hosted nearly every major American postliberal intellectual in Budapest. Many are now familiar figures on the so-called New Right. To use a basketball analogy, if Deneen was the philosopher-coach and Dreher was the veteran point guard on this postliberal squad, the rest of the starting five might include the Catholic integralist Adrian Vermeule; the national conservative Yoram Hazony; the censorious culture warrior Christopher Rufo; and the shapeshifting opinion columnist, UnHerd editor and Compact magazine cofounder Sohrab Ahmari, with the political theorist Gladden Pappin coming in off the bench. Back in the US, Pappin had been a junior academic before he began writing blog posts for the Journal of American Greatness under the pen name Manlius Capitolinus. By now, all of Pappin's posts as Manlius Capitolinus have been taken down, but he subsequently published a series of revealing essays under his own name in another journal. In Toward a Party of the State, from 2019, Pappin argued that the "liberal conservatism" of the old Republican establishment had failed precisely because it became a handmaid to the "governing ideology of neoliberalism," a form of statecraft without a moral vision of the good life. Drawing on left thinkers such as Nancy Fraser, Pappin suggested that neoliberalism maintained its fragile legitimacy by "redefining itself as progressive," creating an unholy alliance between pro-corporate and socially liberal constituencies. To overcome the "neoliberal ideological hegemony," according to this theory, we need a national unity government with a strong, activist party-state led by intellectuals, among them, presumably, Pappin himself. At the time, postliberals could still squint and
