Sen. JD Vance Appears at 'Regime Change' Panel at Catholic University with Deneen and Heritage's Kevin Roberts, Calls His Political Goals 'Explicitly Anti-Elitist, Explicitly Anti-Regime'

On May 17, 2023, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) appeared as a panelist at the “Regime Change and the Future of Liberalism” discussion at Heritage Hall on the campus of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. The event was organized around Patrick Deneen’s 2023 book Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future and brought together the leading figures of the Catholic postliberal intellectual movement with the Heritage Foundation’s institutional leadership. Vance arrived and, per Politico’s photographer on site, “strode into the room, made a bee-line for Deneen and wrapped him in an enthusiastic hug.” At the panel, Vance praised Deneen’s book and described his own political goals using Deneen’s vocabulary: “explicitly anti-elitist, explicitly anti-regime.”

What Happened / Key Facts

The May 17, 2023 panel was convened by Modern Age journal (editor Daniel McCarthy moderated) and featured a roster that functioned as a summary of the Catholic postliberal coalition’s cross-institutional reach: Deneen (Notre Dame, the movement’s leading philosopher), Kevin Roberts (Heritage Foundation president, who had just written the foreword to Mandate for Leadership and was building Heritage into a Project 2025 operational hub), and Washington Post columnist Christine Emba representing a left-postliberal strand. Politico sent a photographer — Francis Chung — indicating the event carried sufficient news value to warrant mainstream political press coverage.

The event was held at Heritage Hall, Catholic University of America — a DC venue that operates as a gathering space for the same overlap of Catholic institutional and conservative political infrastructure. The Notre Dame Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government’s documentation of the event confirms the institutional character: this was not a campaign rally or a political fundraiser, but an intellectual-movement gathering at which a sitting U.S. Senator was a featured participant.

Vance’s core quoted statement — describing his political goals as “explicitly anti-elitist, explicitly anti-regime” — is Deneen’s own vocabulary from Regime Change, deployed verbatim by Vance to signal identification with the postliberal framework. Deneen’s book argues for “the peaceful but vigorous overthrow of a corrupt and corrupting liberal ruling class and the creation of a postliberal order.” Vance’s adoption of this framing at a public panel, 14 months before the VP nomination, is documentary evidence of deliberate theological-political vocabulary alignment with the Catholic-postliberal lane.

Kevin Roberts’ co-presence on the panel is structurally significant: Roberts was simultaneously building Heritage into the operational center of Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership drafting process. The May 2023 panel thus brought together the Catholic-integralist intellectual lane (Deneen), the institutional-political infrastructure lane (Roberts/Heritage), and the electoral lane (Vance/Senate) in a single documented event.

Why This Event Matters

This event is the strongest single documentary link between Vance and the Catholic-integralist lane’s intellectual leadership during the 2021-2024 pre-VP window. The “enthusiastic hug” reported by Politico’s photographer documents a personal warmth that goes beyond professional courtesy. The adoption of Deneen’s vocabulary at a public panel — rather than in a private correspondence or closed-door meeting — is an on-record rhetorical alignment with the postliberal framework.

The event’s structure — organized around Deneen’s Regime Change book, co-sponsored by Modern Age journal, held at Catholic University, with Heritage’s president on the panel — places it at the center of the Catholic-integralist track’s institutional infrastructure. Vance’s participation is not peripheral (a courtesy appearance) but featured (a named panelist whose presence warranted Politico photography).

Roberts’ presence directly bridges the postliberal Catholic intellectual lane and the Project 2025 operational lane — the same bridging function that christian-nationalism-coalition-treaty-vance-as-integrating-bridge documents as structurally load-bearing.

Broader Context

Deneen’s Regime Change was the flagship postliberal text of 2023. Its argument — that a corrupt liberal ruling class must be removed and replaced with a postliberal administrative order — maps directly onto what the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership operationalizes through Schedule F and the proposed Central Personnel Agency. The May 2023 panel brought together the philosophical framing (Deneen) and the institutional implementation (Roberts/Heritage) with the electoral vehicle (Vance) in one documented gathering.

The Heritage Foundation’s Heritage Hall at Catholic University is a persistent venue for this Catholic-conservative-political cross-institutional mobilization. Roberts’ September 2023 Catholic Information Center speech (invoking “radical incrementalism” with Escrivá’s statue present) is a related data point in the same Catholic-institutional-Heritage overlap.

Research Gaps

• Full transcript or video recording of the May 17, 2023 panel would allow verbatim quote extraction beyond the “explicitly anti-elitist” line
• Whether Vance and Deneen had documented private meetings beyond this public panel and the Steubenville October 2022 conference
• Whether Roberts briefed Vance on Project 2025 status at this event (not documented)

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