Sohrab Ahmari (born 1985) is an Iranian-American conservative writer and one of the most visible advocates of postliberalism in American public discourse. A convert to Catholicism, Ahmari argues that liberal neutrality — the framework in which the state does not take sides on substantive questions of the good — has failed, and that political institutions must be redirected toward explicitly moral ends.
Core ideas
- Against David French-ism: Ahmari’s 2019 essay of this title catalyzed the postliberal turn in American conservatism by arguing that conservative commitment to procedural liberalism (free speech, neutral institutions, the marketplace of ideas) is a losing strategy against a progressive left that already treats institutions as instruments of substantive moral transformation. If the left uses institutions to advance its vision of the good, conservatives must do the same.
- Civilizational rhetoric: Ahmari frames the conflict as civilizational rather than merely political — not a policy disagreement but a struggle over the meaning of human life, truth, and social order. This framing draws on Carl Schmitt’s enemy distinction while replacing Schmitt’s secular political theology with Catholic social teaching.
Significance for this research
In emsenn’s analysis of fascist grammar, Ahmari represents the postliberal deployment of the six-step sequence (crisis → pure community → corrupt enemy → sacrifice → destiny → inevitability) in explicitly civilizational vocabulary. His rhetoric performs the same structural function as fascist grammar while operating in a register that appears legitimate within mainstream conservative discourse.
Notable works
- “Against David French-ism” (First Things, 2019)
- The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos (2021)
Related
- Postliberalism — the intellectual tradition he advances
- Adrian Vermeule — fellow postliberal thinker with a legal-institutional focus
- Patrick Deneen — author of Why Liberalism Failed
- Fascist grammar — the rhetorical sequence his discourse reproduces
- Carl Schmitt — political theologian whose framework postliberalism inherits