Vichy Conservatives: A Pathology of the Moderate Right’s Reaction to Hungary

Date: 22 May 2023

The global rise of populism has contributed to the evolution of conservatism as a durable post-liberal political ideology.  Most American conservatives are sympathetic to this new conservatism but a small but well-placed minority – especially in the establishment Republican Party and legacy media – reject it in favor of a de facto rapprochement with the Left. Some notable figures in this camp focus on the post-liberal Right’s interest in Hungary as a case of departing from traditional conservatism.  Paul du Quenoy call these conservatives ‘Vichy Cons’, following the defeatism of France’s wartime Vichy regime, and in his lecture explains why he thinks that ‘Vichy Cons’ are so exercised by affinities between Hungary and the new American right, and how their antipathy is rooted in their own threatened position in American politics.

Speakers:
- Paul du Quenoy, President and Publisher of Academica Press and President of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute
- David Martin Jones, Director of Research, Danube Institute
- John O’Sullivan, President, Danube Institute