Patrick Deneen & The Post Liberal Right | Yaron & Nikos Dialogues

Live Aug 23, 2026
(Yaron & Nikos Dialogues, Episode 11)
Patrick Deneen & The Post Liberal Right | Yaron & Nikos Dialogues

Patrick Deneen says liberalism failed because it succeeded — freedom gave people too much of it, and now he wants a new elite to rule in the name of the "common good." Is that a critique of the West, or the oldest excuse for tyranny wearing a Notre Dame faculty badge?

Patrick Deneen says America needs "regime change" — not at the ballot box, but a quiet takeover by a new elite who'll rule for the "common good" instead of individual rights. He calls it postliberalism. Yaron Brook calls it what it actually is: aristocracy with a syllabus.

Deneen's bestselling books — Why Liberalism Failed and Regime Change — have become the intellectual bible of the post-liberal right, blurbed by Obama, quoted by JD Vance, cited by the "common good conservatives" reshaping the GOP. His argument: individual freedom itself is the disease. The cure is a ruling class willing to override your choices for the sake of the collective.

In this episode of Yaron & Nikos Dialogues, Yaron Brook and Nikos Sotirakopoulos take Deneen's ideas apart line by line — where "common good" politics actually leads, why every attack on individualism ends up defending the same thing (power over you), and why the post-liberal right and the woke left are closer than either side wants to admit. If you've heard people say liberalism "went too far," this episode explains exactly what they mean — and why they're wrong.

Main Topics: 
00:00 — Cold open: what "regime change" actually means in Deneen's own words 
06:30 — Who is Patrick Deneen, and why did Obama put him on a reading list? 
15:00 — "Liberalism failed because it succeeded" — unpacking the core claim 
26:00 — The "common good" con: how collectivism always smuggles itself in through a nice-sounding phrase 
38:00 — Aristopopulism: Deneen's plan for a new elite to rule over the "many" 
50:00 — Is this Catholic integralism with a populist paint job? 
1:02:00 — Where the post-liberal right and the woke left secretly agree

Live Audience Questions: 
1:14:00 — Is Deneen just describing real problems badly, or is his solution the actual danger? 
1:20:30 — Does JD Vance actually believe this stuff, or is he just borrowing the vocabulary? 
1:27:00 — Can a "new elite" ever rule for anyone but itself? 
1:34:00 — Is national conservatism just socialism with incense and a flag? 
1:41:00 — What's the actual liberal (classical) answer to the loneliness and rootlessness Deneen describes?

🔴 Watch: https://youtube.com/live/CReo-p--qJ8

#PatrickDeneen #PostLiberalism #Objectivism #AynRand #Individualism #Conservatism #WhyLiberalismFailed #CommonGoodConservatism #NikosSotirakopoulos #integralism #faith #jdvance #catholicism #Capitalism 

More from Nikos Sotirakopoulos: https://www.nikos.org/
Support Nikos: https://www.youtube.com/@nikos_1717

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Yaron is the executive chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute and a world class speaker. He is the coauthor of the national best-seller Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government, Equal is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality and In Pursuit of Wealth: The Moral Case for Finance. He speaks around the world on a variety of topics including the morality of capitalism, Ayn Rand and her philosophy, finance and economics, and the value of inequality.