We Need To Talk About The Illiberal Right
How the rise of the illiberal right reflects the failures of liberalism
Today, I want to talk about an increasingly important issue: the rise of the illiberal right. In the past few years, I have been talking a lot about threats to liberalism coming from the Left. However, there has also been a growing movement of illiberalism within the Right, that has become, in my opinion, big enough to warrant serious attention from those of us who worry about the erosion of liberalism. I think that, going forward, we should be giving equal attention to the illiberal right and the illiberal left alike. After all, the last thing we want is for illiberalism to take over both sides of mainstream politics.
Let’s talk about the appeal of the illiberal right. Why are people attracted to the illiberal right? To be honest, I think their message actually resonates with a lot of people. The illiberal right likes to talk about how liberalism has failed because it has led to a landscape of broken families, social problems, and collapse of tradition, and many people are finding that talk attractive. I think that the rise of the illiberal right reflects some fundamental failures of liberalism, failures that I believe we must seriously address if we are to stop the growth of the illiberal right. These failures can be divided between the failures of libertarians, and the failures of progressive liberals, because they belong to completely different categories, but when added together they represent one big frustration towards liberalism for many people. It is this frustration that the illiberal right is capitalizing on.
Let’s start with the libertarians, one of the two main branches that descended from 19th century liberalism. Conventional libertarianism has been generally very good with free speech and civil rights issues. Libertarians have never had a problem with people expressing their sincerely held opinions, whatever they might be. However, the core criticism of the illiberal right towards libertarians is that their excessive commitment to capitalist economics has contributed to a landscape of broken families and social problems, and I think this is, unfortunately, true.
Liberalism is about freedom, including the freedom to choose to live the life you believe in. However, if the economic circumstances make it not quite possible to build a healthy family life, can we still say that there is this freedom of choice? The problem with conventional libertarianism is that, in many cases, it leads to a situation where there is freedom of choice when you have the money. Otherwise, you might find it difficult to even fulfill your basic needs, which for many people would include providing a healthy life for their families. This would indeed discredit the idea of liberalism for many, if not most, people.
Now, let’s look at progressive liberals, the other main branch descended from 19th century liberalism. Progressive liberals have always advocated for a strong social safety net, which would greatly ease the economic pressure of living in a capitalist society for working families. This could be attractive to some of the people who would otherwise be inclined towards the illiberal right. Indeed, during the 2019 US Presidential primaries, many conservative-leaning people expressed interest in ideas like a UBI, Medicare For All, and a higher minimum wage. However, progressive liberals don’t exactly have a good record on free speech, and this is a real barrier for many people.
Liberalism is only credible when it truly commits to fair and neutral process, and to a level playing field between ideas and opinions. You do not need to agree with the opinion expressed, but you have to allow people to truly express what their conscience says, and you have to allow the debate to play out fairly. Under the influence of various postmodern critical theories, the Left has increasingly moved away from this commitment, and I think it’s a mistake. The illiberal left is also directly fueling the rise of the illiberal right, because, when there’s not much room for rational and fair debate in good faith, everything quickly descends into a game of grabbing power and wielding it against your enemies. Notice how the illiberal right likes to essentially use the rise of the illiberal left to justify its own illiberalism. It really is a vicious circle.
My conclusion from this analysis is that, to stem the rising tide of the illiberal right, I think there needs to be a serious discussion about what liberalism stands for, and how we can make liberalism credible again, in the context of the 21st century. I think we need to return to the roots of liberalism, i.e. freedom. We need a liberalism that is committed to providing practical freedom for people, in the real world they live in. Economically, this is likely to require moving away from the neoliberal model. Socially, there is going to be a need to re-emphasize fundamental values like free speech, freedom of conscience, and the value of open and rational debate, so traditional and new ideas alike can be on a level playing field. On both ends, there will be a need to move away from long-standing de-facto alliances that are strangling us, and this will take courage. But I believe it’s the only way to save liberalism.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who recently published her autobiography The TaraElla Story, in which she described the events that inspired her writing.
She is also the author of the Moral Libertarian Horizon books, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for Western democracies in the 21st century.
