For many voters, the post–New Deal coalition Democratic Party has ceased to represent any particular project. Instead, it has become associated with weak half measures, technocratic workarounds, uninspiring compromises, mealy-mouthed excuses, and obvious diversions

The Democratic Party of George McGovern was, in this narrative, the party of “acid, amnesty and abortion,” the party of chaos, disruption and overreach. Out of touch with the vast American middle, it had cast its lot with cultural elites and antiwar militants. This Democratic Party, said the Nixon campaign, could not relate to the tens of millions... See more

In the past decade, liberalism has taken a beating from both sides of the political spectrum. Its critics to the left view its measured gradualism as incommensurate to the present’s multiple emergencies: climate change, inequality, the rise of an ethno-nationalist right. Conservatives, by contrast, paint liberalism as a cultural leviathan that has... See more