The Death of Liberalism
The death of liberalism is not an explosion. It’s not a scandal, a conspiracy, or some epic historical event that demands commemoration. It’s a whimper. A slow fade into irrelevance, marked by polite nods at dinner parties and wistful New York Times op-eds.
Once, we were the steady, reasonable centrists, the progressives who believed in the angels of our better nature. We took Lincoln’s rhetoric and stapled it onto a vision of perpetual moral improvement — everyone holding hands, humming vaguely patriotic tunes, and moving gently toward justice. We didn’t want revolution; revolutions are too bloody. We wanted brunch with a side of incremental progress. It was all so very pleasant. But then 2024 happened, and nobody’s in the mood for pleasant anymore.
Liberalism, it turns out, was never built for the brutality of reality. It was the political equivalent of the friend who offers you chamomile tea when your house is on fire.
The right-wing had no patience for this nonsense and hit us where it hurt: everywhere. Conservatives turned culture wars into gladiator bloodbaths, wielding outrage like a chainsaw. We showed up with carefully researched studies on civic engagement and a vague sense of hurt feelings, blinking as if we couldn’t quite believe anyone would dare play dirty. And it worked — for the right, that is. They bulldozed over the niceties and…
