The case for liberal pessimism

Liberalism hasn’t had its sorrows to seek of late but its misfortunes show no sign of abating. The confluence of national populism and coercive progressivism, and the refusal of the non-aligned but sympathetic soft-right and soft-left to break with the culture wars, gives liberalism little chance of reasserting itself. This comes, too, as domestic and external threats to the liberal order continue to pile up. Far from a break with the authoritarian trends of recent years, 2021 has the makings of another annus illiberalis.

1) Trump is going, his politics may not be

The grim, demeaning scenes at the US Capitol ought to hasten Donald Trump’s departure from the White House but relief that the Trump era is closing seems optimistic. The nice, presentable, Mitt Romney wing of the GOP is going to do its damnedest to take the party back but, as Sir Keir Starmer is learning on this side of the Pond, a party that goes fringe is not easily returned to the centre.