A new Liberalism

Authoritarianism seeks to strip people of their freedom. Liberalism arose to give people more of it. Since the dawn of history, we have always struggled for freedom against oppression, and we are now living in the newest stage of that struggle.

The new authoritarianism looks much like the old. It emerges from the worst of human impulses: fear and contempt. Under its lens, the world is seen as fundamentally zero-sum. Every loss for you is a gain for someone else, and unintended consequences are but a convenient myth for those manufacturing each crisis to hide behind.

The game of politics is to dominate or be dominated. You may not like the rules, but it’s you or them, and the other side has been playing under your nose this whole time. The institutions you see are nothing but facades; they exist to delude you. With each election cycle, the color of your cage may change, but it will never be unlocked. And every second, you get closer to being dropped into the frightening chasm below. The stakes could not be higher. You are in a struggle between good and evil, and nothing but the complete destruction of your enemies will be enough. If their perverted influence is allowed to go on, no one can tell how bad things will get. And most importantly if someone tells you that any of this is not the case, they are lying, and they know it. Do not be fooled by the false prophets who seek to shepherd you back into delusion. Their profession is serving the enemy, and they deal in deceit.

Left or right, the authoritarian story is always the same, just with different bogeymen. It’s a recipe for power that its opportunistic leaders know all too well. It’s also an alluring tale: one that presents its believers as enlightened and engaged with their peers in a struggle that, if successful, will deliver utopia.

Today’s authoritarians on the right fearmonger about the “great replacement” and are increasingly enthralled by nativism, isolationist nationalism, and protectionism. They villainize higher education, promote state censorship, fearmonger about sexual, racial, and ethnic minorities, and terrify themselves about fictitious culture wars.

Meanwhile, the authoritarian elements of the left manage to reduce all problems to business and all solutions to collective control. They use alarm about climate change as a justification for their dreams of massive state seizures, and the worst of them fantasize about guillotines, firing lines, and revolutions.

Not all have swallowed these delusions, but a frightening number have taken half doses. Evolution did not prime us well for resisting the cognitive biases that birth such views. Still yet they have been defeated before, and they can be defeated again.

Part and parcel to this objective is reminding the public that the sweet promises of populists and demagogues never cease to ring hollow. Their solutions are as thin as their tolerance for diverging views.

In turn, the authoritarian agenda of control must be met with a liberal agenda of hope:

A new liberal vision to address the crises of modernity. One that recognizes that addressing the skyrocketing costs of housing, healthcare, and education requires a politics of abundance, not scarcity. That ending contemporary economic stagnation requires more openness to new people, goods, and ideas, not less. And that fully appreciates the crucial role the government has in ensuring that the fruits of prosperity are spread widely and fairly.

The public must know that the perils of the status quo are not the product of liberalism but rather a failure to live up to its ideals; that it is not our freedom that is to blame for our plights, but rather our freedom’s obstruction by illiberal cultural forces, state intrusions, and exclusionary economic structures; moreover, that progress in the face of our problems requires us to deepen our liberalism, by expanding opportunity, enhancing economic dynamism, reinvigorating our democracy, deepening our commitment to individual agency, and embracing the diversity that comes with a free society.

The public must know that in the abyss of the status quo, the embers of liberalism are ready to be lit anew and that we, the new liberals, are here to light them.