If there is a headline to the past half-decade, it’s this: liberal democracy is under threat across the West and populist movements are on the march. There’s Brexit in the UK. There’s Viktor Orbán in Hungary. There’s Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. And in the United States, of course, there’s Donald Trump.
So today: a debate. Should we be fighting to preserve liberalism, the system that prizes our individual rights and the very foundation upon which America was built? Or is the system itself the problem?
It’s a high-stakes debate—over the future of America and liberal democracy—and we couldn’t have two better people for this conversation: University of Notre Dame political science professor Patrick Deneen; and New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens.
Both Bret and Patrick are what people would label “conservatives,” but there is likely more disagreement between the two of them than between the average Democrat and Republican. Bret believes the problems we see today are happening because we have lost too much of our individual freedom. Patrick, on the other hand, believes that having so much freedom has actually damaged us—that our problems are caused precisely by the system that puts individual liberty on a pedestal.
Patrick Deneen’s 2018 book, Why Liberalism Failed, grabbed the attention of people across the political spectrum, including Barack Obama, who included it on his “Books I’m Reading” list.
Bret Stephens, who has been on the show before, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. His speciality is foreign policy and his prescient book is called America In Retreat.
The real threat to liberalism does not come from Trump / Populists / The Right / etc. The reality is that liberal governance is sinking and failing and anti-liberal governance is rising and succeeding.
Some history may help here.
Around 1840, a small liberal (by the standards of the day) island waged a war against a vast empire on the other side of the world. This was of course, the Opium War (a vile undertaking to say the least). The liberal island (the UK) won both the first and the second Opium Wars. China was decisively defeated.
These days the world has been turned upside down. My favorite quote on this is
“China is very good at building dams, the US is very good at enforcing PC. Which system will prevail in the 21st century?”.
Of course, dams in China are only one example. How about high-speed rail lines in California. The US tried to build one and failed. China has built 25,000 miles of high-speed rail.
In 1968, the US was in the final stages of the Apollo program (which would succeed in 1969) and China was starting the debacle of the Cultural Revolution. Stated differently, the US was arguably among the most effective nations on Earth and China was among the least effective nations on Earth. What about now?
In 2021, this isn’t so clear. Let me use one of my favorite examples. California tried to build a high-speed rail line and failed. Costs in 2020 were estimated at $80 billion and possibly as high as $99.8 billion. The project collapsed under its own weight (cost). The nation of Spain built an HSR from Madrid to Barcelona at a cost of $6 billion. By coincidence, the distance is about the same.
Of course, California has substantial mountain ranges as you approach San Francisco (from the south) or Los Angeles (from the north). Conversely, the Central Valley of California is one of the flattest places on Earth (way flatter than Spain).
The details here are not really that important. The important fact is that the US/California is now a place where things don’t get done (other than PC enforcement).
Yes, Lee, results. Many would say that Putin wouldn't have invaded Russia if not for the weakness he perceived in this administration. So, there are many perspectives and realities to consider.