Nov 29, 2024
After the election, there was a hurricane of postmortems
attempting to explain why Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump.
Eschewing small-bore analysis, historian Daniel Bessner posted on
X, "I feel like people are missing the fundamental lesson of the
election: it is not the Democratic Party that is in crisis;
liberalism itself is in crisis." Liberalism—the dominant political
philosophy of the American Century—appears to be a spent force amid
a wave of illiberal populism and anti-establishment politics. In
this episode, Bessner, who co-hosts
American Prestige podcast, delves into the origins of
liberalism's rise and apparent decline in this post-post-Cold War
period.
Further reading:
Empire Burlesque: What Comes After the American Century? by Daniel Bessner (Harper's)