A very powerful perspective in an article from Democracy Digest.

To challenge liberalism is to not merely engage in ordinary political argumentation. It is to call into question the entire operating system that defines the world’s democracies. It is, by its nature, a radical claim, Zack Beauchamp writes for Vox:

The rise of such a challenge to liberalism has highlighted how the liberal status quo has failed to deliver, particularly in the wealthy West. Across the OECD, the top 10 percent makes over nine times per year as much as the bottom 10 percent. Metrics of trust in a range of governmental institutions — legislatures, courts, civil service — are falling across advanced democracies. In the United States specifically, deaths from alcohol abuse, drug overdose, and suicide have reached all-time highs.

The intellectual critics of liberalism opponents do not typically challenge democracy itself. But they are united in believing that American liberalism as currently constituted is past its expiration date, that it is buckling under the weight of its contradictions. Critics on the left and right are waging war on liberalism. And liberals don’t seem to have a good defense, Beauchamp adds:

See full story here.