Beyond Liberal
American politics is often described as a contest between liberals and conservatives. This dichotomy can be a useful descriptive tool. It describes, for example, the early political divisions among the Founders, with liberalism an apt identifier for the coalition of small farmers and urban workers supporting Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Party and conservatism a fit label for the manufacturing and financial interests backing Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist Party.
The struggle between liberals and conservatives is the prism through which many historians have viewed the subsequent two-hundred-plus years of American history. While the term “liberal” is often a slur today (as in the MAGA trope, “own the libs”), “liberalism” in the United States has been associated with the expansion of freedom and individual rights. One dominant motif in American history has been the spread of individual rights — the right to vote, in particular — to more people and groups than only those free, White property holders who held the franchise in 1790. Liberals identify with this trend; conservatives have often been on the other side, urging caution — if not downright opposition — to the granting of rights to people of color, women, and other groups previously ignored in American political culture.
The accidental geography of the seating arrangements in the legislature of Revolutionary France has given us the terms “left” and “right.” Liberals and liberalism are on the “left;” conservatives and conservatism on the “right.” I will let those on the right chose their descriptors. But it seems to me that while liberalism has been a useful ideology in the development of American political society, its usefulness has now run its course. This is true not only because it has become a term of odium, but also because liberalism no longer addresses the problems plaguing contemporary America.
To understand why this is so, a brief historical survey of liberalism may be helpful. Liberalism traditionally has focused on political rights and the guarantee of freedoms that most Americans now take for granted, such as the right to speak freely, to worship as we please, to vote secretly and freely and so on. (Much of the following discussion has been influenced by Susan Neiman’s trenchant book, Left Is Not Woke.) To put it slightly differently, liberalism believes that the central role of government is to protect and expand the freedom of the individual (and a liberal is one who endorses this definition of liberalism).
Protecting the “rights of Englishmen” was the rallying cry of the American Revolution. (While the main thrust of the American Revolution was to secure home rule, the issue of who should rule at home cannot be ignored.) The Declaration of Independence, with its emphasis on “certain unalienable rights” such as “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” and its assertion that those rights derive from “the consent of the governed,” is a classic expression of liberalism.
American liberalism owes much to English precedents (hence the stress on the “rights of Englishmen”). The struggles in English politics between Whigs and Tories was a battle over weakening two forms of social constraint: Religious conformity and aristocratic privilege. Because the Founders were well-read in English history, they had a variety of historical precedents and liberal thinkers — John Locke, in particular — to consult when forming the new United States. It is, therefore, no accident of history that the founders wrote freedom of religion into the Constitution and worked to undermine aristocratic privilege (despite the large representation of plantation-owning enslavers among the Founders).
It is a cliche by now — but still true — to say that the “more perfect Union” founded in 1787 was less than perfect. (After all, that “Union” protected the ownership of human beings.) Yet, it is also true, that liberalism’s focus on the individual — and groups of individuals sharing a supposed common identity — has worked to make that “Union” more and more perfect. Rights have been extended to previously marginalized groups, and while those rights are not always honored, they are legally guaranteed. Though racial equality has not yet been achieved, for example, it is also true that legal segregation has ended and the theoretical principles of equality are widely accepted. That, to put it bluntly, is progress.
The problem with liberalism’s emphasis on the individual is that it can lead to tribalism. Using the term in this sense (it being otherwise insulting to most tribal peoples) helps to put in perspective contemporary America’s descent into bitter political warfare. Tribalism makes the ethnic, social, or political group, rather than the nation, the locus of belonging. Tribalism is the root of the identity politics central to the Democratic Party. Similarly, tribalism has led to the growth of the MAGA movement and its unwillingness to accept electoral defeat. For Trump and his followers, losing an election is not just disappointing; it is an existential threat to the tribal group.
I do not mean to blame liberalism entirely for the rise of the cult of Trump. But I think it relevant to note that the emphasis on individuality to the detriment of the good of the larger community has its more corrosive, selfish side. The historic stress in America on individual rights has meant that we have ignored social rights such as the right to a college education, the right to health care, the right to paid paternity leave, the right to decent housing, and many other rights that most Europeans, for example, enjoy. Most importantly, the protection of individual political rights over societal well-being has led to the gross wealth inequality in contemporary America. (Let me state categorically so that there is no misunderstanding here: Individual freedom and political rights must be protected. I do not view this as a zero-sum game in which the expansion of social rights leads to an erosion of political rights.)
During the New Deal, liberals realized that governmental intervention in society was necessary. Hence, the growth of the welfare state. But social security, for example, was never framed as a “right.” Rather, it was described by its liberal authors as an “entitlement” or a “benefit,” somehow suggesting that economic security in old age is a function of charity rather than justice. It is still so depicted.
If we lived in Europe, we could draw upon an old and proud history of socialism. We could fight for social rights such as universal health care and affordable housing for all under the guise of democratic socialism. There are, of course, those — Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to name two — who want to make democratic socialism palatable in America. But the term “socialist,” no matter how we dress it up, is not acceptable to the vast majority of Americans.
So, if those on the left cannot call themselves socialist and if liberalism, as I have suggested, is a spent force because of its focus on an individualism that ignores social needs, then what term is apt? Let me suggest progressive for the individual adherent; progressivism to describe the movement. A progressivism that stresses the universal principles of the Enlightenment against the tribal instincts of modern politics. A progressivism that emphasizes justice over winning political power. And, most importantly, a progressivism that, as its name implies, believes in progress.
Do not call me a liberal. I am a progressive. And proud of it.
Posted April 2, 2024