Liberalism in a Populist Era
As a political philosophy, liberalism throughout history has sought to secure individual rights, promote the rule of law, balance market forces with social protections, reduce inequality, and advance international security. Liberalism offers an aspirational vision of human freedom, an optimistic take on human nature and our ability to act cooperatively, and a political project to secure personal liberties through mixed economies and legal means.
Pragmatism is a less ideological but complementary political theory. Pragmatism tries to deal with the world as it exists, and not as utopian philosophers and activists wish it to be. In the pragmatist tradition, the worthiness of a particular idea or policy is to be determined through real world experimentation. Pragmatists try to adjust their understandings of how to organize society and government based on observations of what works in practice and what garners sustained public agreement over time.
Combining the two philosophies, pragmatic liberalism in American politics is dedicated to expanding human freedom and individual rights through partial reforms and governmental measures enacted over time—within constitutional constraints and with sustained electoral majorities to give democratic legitimacy to these efforts.
Pragmatic liberalism triumphed in the twentieth century during the long New Deal-Great Society period of policy development. America over the past thirty years has had two successful periods of pragmatic liberalism (with strong electoral backing) under presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Today, pragmatic liberalism is decidedly on its heels. We are living in a new nationalist-populist era spearheaded by President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. Trump won a second term in office for many reasons, but the larger context for his victory is that liberalism in the past two decades has come to be associated with establishment failures on economic policy and foreign affairs, elite cultural norms, and the narrow perspectives of college-educated professionals living mainly in or around urban areas.
Liberalism today isn’t seen as either pragmatic or connected to the desires and needs of regular citizens. The last administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris personified these internal value contradictions and external policy failures. Biden had a chance to usher in a new era of pragmatic liberalism after the first Trump presidency but flopped dramatically leaving liberals with no clear leadership, vision, or political strategy for future success.
Trump’s vision for America is liberal in the sense that he believes in markets, capitalism, free speech, and religious freedom—at least rhetorically and mostly in practice. His commitment to legal and constitutional liberalism remains unclear both in political expression (“He who saves his Country does not violate any law,”) and through some but not all of his recent executive actions. Yet Trump would never call his approach liberal, and instead proudly declares himself untethered from both traditional conservatism and liberalism. His populist project is to take down both of these basic American political philosophies (grounded in nineteenth and twentieth century liberal ideas, respectively) and replace them with his own hybrid vision of American nationalism led and directed by himself.
At times, Trump’s nationalist-populist approach manifests as traditionally right-leaning on economics (big tax/spending cuts and deregulation) and at other times it seems less so (tariffs, support for organized labor, acceptance of some New Deal/Great Society government programs, and immigration restrictions). On cultural matters, his new populism is a hodgepodge of traditional liberal defenses of universal rights, sex-based equality, and colorblind policies along with hits on “woke” elites and ruling-class bureaucrats who favor group-based rights and out-of-the-mainstream views about society.
Trump has achieved his political success by never following the old playbook of pragmatic liberalism that relies on measured rhetoric, outward calmness, and avoidance of rash behavior. Trump relishes breaking norms and saying or doing outlandish things that establishment types believe he should not say or do (e.g., let Musk and DOGE loose on bureaucracy, fire federal workers and eliminate entire governmental departments, claim ownership of Gaza, and threaten to slap tariffs on Canada and Mexico).
So far, Trump has amassed strong backing from working-class voters and a segment of economic elites for his political approach and methods. How long this support might last is an open question. Once populist sentiments among voters are unleashed and stoked, they tend to keep going and growing in intensity. Public anger and disappointment used to unseat a ruling government often boomerangs back on those who employ these emotions to win an election—particularly if economic grievances and material concerns are not addressed in due time.
Regardless of the staying power of Trump’s nationalist-populist movement, liberalism as a political philosophy and political effort is in desperate need of rethinking and reorganizing. Contemporary liberalism suffers from widespread perceptions that it is politically weak, culturally extreme, dedicated to decrepit and biased institutions, overly focused on big spending with little to show for it, and unable or unwilling to address people’s real economic needs.
To regenerate itself, liberalism will need to be the opposite of its failed current form: strong, reform-oriented yet still pragmatic, culturally normal, and willing to radically rethink its past policy commitments in government to make it function better and address people’s genuine concerns about the high cost of living, economic insecurity, regional disparities, and culturally obscure doctrines.
This is an intellectual project for liberalism as much as a party leadership one. Right now, nearly all Democrats and non-populist, center-right Republicans—the traditional political proponents of pragmatic liberalism—are hanging on to a set of beliefs and policies that are purely reactive to Trump and overly defensive about a status quo political system that is increasingly seen to be out-of-touch and ineffective.
Some of this defense will be needed to help protect the best aspects of liberal governance and the rule of law from Trump’s sledgehammer and illiberal tendencies. But ultimately, reactionary outbursts from the center-left are not a vision or political agenda for the future.
Liberals should take some time in opposition to step back from daily social media and policy fights with Trump to answer a few key questions about what liberalism—and the political parties and candidates that back it—want to achieve for America. This will require ideas and policies that are genuinely pragmatic on economic and social grounds, and politically popular in electoral terms.
Here are four important questions for liberals to critically evaluate and debate over the next year:
Liberals tried out both a high taxation/more regulation/big government spending model and a market-friendly approach to tax and budget policy, globalization, and trade. What worked best in each of these approaches, and what did not? What economic vision are liberals promoting today as an alternative to Trump’s nationalist-populist version?
Liberals amassed a huge list of policy achievements over the twentieth century, and some more recently. Which of these past greats from liberal governance must be defended tooth and nail? Which policy ideas and governmental programs should be adjusted or jettisoned since they didn’t work out as expected?
Liberals created a massive federal government over time to deal with serious economic and social problems facing the country. But the government is clearly unwieldy and ineffective in many ways that understandably make citizens angry and cynical. How can government be structured to deliver better outcomes for citizens, workers, and American businesses alike? What is the government’s proper role in building and supporting national economic growth and development?
Liberals fought over decades to expand civil rights and liberties for more Americans and to create genuine equality of opportunity for all people. But today, segments of the progressive left are pushing a variety of questionable ideas on sex, race, ethnicity, free speech, and religion that are markedly illiberal. How can pragmatic liberals ditch the bad cultural ideas of the left and get back to promoting normal rights and opportunities for all Americans?
This new nationalist-populist era under Trump could peak and crash within a relatively short time depending on how it unfolds. Trump was unpopular with many Americans last time around and could be again. Likewise, neither political party tends to hold unified control of government for very long. Americans are willing to give Democrats and Republicans a chance to do what they want for a short spell, and often decide after two years that they prefer divided government.
However, it is quite possible that this nationalist-populist era under Trump will continue and possibly expand its electoral support, particularly if Americans conclude that the alternative political model is neither pragmatic nor truly liberal.
Given this reality, liberals should spend more time addressing their historically weak position in American society rather than fretting about message control and social media tactics. No amount of marketing will fix the problems of pragmatic liberals—whether Democrats or non-Trump Republicans—if Americans don’t fundamentally agree with their underlying values and support their economic and cultural agenda.
As a conservative with libertarian instincts, my impression is that Trump incited a period of gross illiberalism on the left to the point there were no liberals left in the last decade, at least not among those with their hands on the levers of power. If you view the machinations of Obama/Hillary Democrats in attempting to deal with Trump in his first campaign and term as president, you see fascist or Bolshevik tactics deployed to destroy him. This continued throughout his first term and during the four years of Biden in which he was subjected to lawfare, the utter politicization of the legal system to destroy opponents. This was devious illiberalism in which the power of the state was used to destroy the leader of a surging political movement that began with the Tea Party uprising during Obama's first term.
Trump and Musk are what i call working libertarians in style and in most of their policies. Their hostility to leviathan government is pronounced because they have experienced it on many levels. As Trump said in his debate with Hillary, "I know the system is corrupt because I use it." Now he's getting his revenge of sorts and to my mind, restoring central government (which has become a Swamp) to something more in line with the American character, which is largely hostile to creeping European socialism.
I think Trump's movement will last because its younger stalwarts like Vance, DeSantis, Rubio and others will be fully prepared to continue what is, if not a revolution, a rapid restructuring of the current state of federalism. Remember, Bill Clinton did the same thing in a much more quiet way when he reduced the federal bureaucracy by over 400,000 jobs, many of them managerial, between 1993 and 1999. It was a more gradual than what appears to be going on now, but it was still a dramatic reduction in bureaucracy, which is what Americans generally want.
I think these are great questions that definitely need answering. My fear is that liberals will have to work out the answers not in a calm, year-long period of retreat and reflection but instead under an intense blitzkrieg against the constitutional order, here and now, on a timetable of months. The collective body of work of the New Right intellectuals at the heart of administration policy suggests to me a concrete plan unfolding over the course of this calendar year. The plan is evident, I would argue, in the longtime record of statements by, among others, J.D. Vance, Russell Vought, Stephen Miller, Michael Anton, and their associates outside of government, like Patrick Deneen, Adrian Vermeule, Curtis Yarvin, and Steve Bannon.
The plan, roughly, is to: (1) seize control of the executive branch, unfettered by serious legal constraints; (2) use executive branch power, in the form of fiscal policy, regulations, investigations, and litigation, to break, dominate, and replace the leadership of private sector institutions like universities, professional associations, corporate management, NGOs, philanthropies, and media. From what I can tell, stage (1) is slated for implementation largely in this calendar year, probably culminating in either favorable Supreme Court decisions or creative evasion, subversion, and defiance of same. Stage (2) would then unfold over the remainder of the current Trump term.
Success in that effort would make the executive branch the dominant arbiter of legality and economic power in American life, displacing Congress, the courts, and private sector actors. It's doubtful to me that free and fair elections could unfold under those circumstances. John's essay above seems to assume that such elections will be possible. Maybe they will, but approaching this problem like an intelligence analyst trying to divine enemy intent in wartime, I infer that the Trump inner circle likely wants to eliminate its enemies from serious contention for national electoral success. I would expect state GOP leaders to emulate the national leadership in this regard.
As this situation becomes clearer, there will likely be at least an attempt at large-scale street protests by the progressive left (i.e. "the Groups") and its logistical backers among billionaires and elements of corporate America. The Trump administration, according to media accounts, seems willing to use force against such protests, including domestic deployment of US military forces. How the Joint Chiefs of Staff and combatant commands react to such a scenario will be a key variable.
In sum, the questions John sets forth for American liberalism will probably have to be answered not in a period of retreat and reflection, anticipating future elections, but instead under pressure of time, resources, and uncertainty in a constitutional crisis, fraught with potential for mass violence and extreme scenarios without precedent in the history of the United States -- but with plenty of precedent in the history of other countries. This is a dark conclusion, which I've found echoed by commentators like Yascha Mounk, Larry Diamond, and Damon Linker. I think it has to be the starting point for planning, though. This isn't 1985, after Mondale's defeat, or 1973, after McGovern's. It's the 1780s, 1860s, or 1930s. A new order for the ages is here, for better or worse.