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The once and future liberal
160 pages
A sharp, urgent polemic that challenges modern political strategies and advocates for a return to unifying civic solidarity.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like sitting through a tough-love seminar delivered by a deeply frustrated but ultimately optimistic political science professor. The pace is brisk and the prose is sharp, stripping away academic jargon in favor of direct, impassioned arguments. It immerses the reader in an intellectually charged atmosphere, moving from a stinging critique of recent ideological fragmentation to a pragmatic call for institutional focus. The mood is urgent and contemplative, asking readers to step back from the daily outrage cycle and consider the broader mechanics of persuasion and power. It will deeply engage political junkies, civic-minded thinkers, and anyone looking for a structural, historical lens on how political movements succeed or fail in capturing the public imagination.
- Mood
- intellectually charged
- frustrated
- contemplative
- Tone
- urgent
- critical
- impassioned
- analytical
- pragmatic
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- civic solidarity · political strategy · the common good · institutional power · ideological shifts
- The writing
- Sharp, polemical, and highly readable, favoring clear arguments over academic jargon.
- The arc
- Begins with a stinging diagnosis of political fragmentation and builds toward an urgent, pragmatic plea for civic unity.
- Who it's for
- Political observers and civic-minded readers seeking a tough-love critique of modern political strategies and a roadmap for institutional engagement.
Content notes
- political polarization
About the book
In The Once and Future Liberal, Mark Lilla offers an impassioned, tough-minded, and stinging look at the failure of American liberalism over the past two generations. Although there have been Democrats in the White House, and some notable policy achievements, for nearly forty years the vision that Ronald Reagan offered - small government, lower taxes, and self-reliant individualism - has remained the country's dominant political ideology. And the Democratic Party has offered no convincing competing vision in response. Instead, as Lilla argues, American liberalism fell under the spell of identity politics, with disastrous consequences. Driven originally by a sincere desire to protect the most vulnerable Americans, the left has now unwittingly balkanized the electorate, encouraged self-absorption rather than solidarity, and invested its energies in social movements rather than in party politics. Lilla goes to show how the left's identity-focused individualism insidiously conspired with the amoral economic individiualism of the Reaganite right to shape an electorate with little sense of a shared future and near-contempt for the idea of the common good. In the contest for the American imagination, liberals have abdicated. Now they have an opportunity to reset. The left is motivated, and the Republican Party, led by an unpredictable demagogue, is in ideological disarray. To seize this opportunity, LIlla insists, liberals must concentrate their efforts on recapturing our institutions by winning elections. The time for hectoring is over. It is time to reach out and start convincing people from every walk of life and in every region of the country that liberals will stand up for them. We must appeal to - but also help to rebuild - a sense of common feeling among Americans, and a sense of duty to one another. A fiercely argued, no-nonsense book, enlivened by Lilla's acerbic wit and erudition, The Once and Future Liberal is essential reading for our momentous times. -- from dust jacket.
Description from Open Library.
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