Is Liberalism Coming to Its Senses?

Last updated on: January 5, 2025 at 7:54 pm By Gene Veith

I am astonished at the relatively mild reactions among progressives to Donald Trump’s re-election and the way so many of them are blaming themselves and their woke ideology for their defeat. I’ve blogged about the sudden vibe shift away from identity politics on the left. This may not last, but here is another bit of evidence that the left is changing its tune.

Reader David N. Gray put me onto an article in The Atlantic by Jonathan Chait entitled “How Liberal America Came to Its Senses.” (It’s behind a paywall, but a syndicated is available for free here.)

Chait has impeccable liberal credentials, not only as a staff writer for The Atlantic but as the former senior editor of the very progressive New Republic. He explores what he calls “left-wing illiberalism.” The word “liberal” comes from the Latin word for freedom, as in “liberty” and “liberation.” Liberals in the political sense became “illiberals” in the sense of turning against the principles of “liberal democracy,” opposing other people’s freedom, their rights, and their social equality.

The problem from Chait’s perspective is not being “woke,” as such. Rather, it’s the mentality that people who violate the norms of wokeness should be punished. “Land acknowledgments are woke,” Chait observes. “Hate Has No Place Here yard signs are woke. But those forms of wokeness are not illiberal or coercive.”

Starting about 10 years ago–Chait sees it beginning in earnest in 2014–such wokeness did become illiberal and coercive. He credits the progressives’ belief with the election of Barack Obama and the rapid acceptance of gay marriage that they had won the day. Also, the rise of Twitter favored “morally uncomplicated positions” and facilitated the “mustering” of “braying crowds to render summary judgment.”

The norms that were enforced “combined an almost infinitely expansive definition of what constituted racism or sexism—any accusation of bigotry was considered almost definitionally correct—with a hyperbolic understanding of the harm created by encountering offensive ideas or terms.”

The punishments for violating those norms commenced. Chait gives many examples of controversial speakers cancelled on college campuses and people hounded out of their jobs for minor offenses. A Democratic analyst was fired for retweeting a study by a Black scholar who found that violent demonstrations helped Nixon get re-elected. that Soon, retribution was demanded for anyone associated with an infraction. A NASCAR driver lost sponsorships because his father used the N-word in the 1980s. Harvard’s first Black dean of the faculty was fired when it was learned that his law firm had defended Harvey Weinstein, “establishing a new norm that the sins of misogynists and racists would now attach to the defense lawyers who represent them.”

Progressives insisted this was simply “accountability,” a manifestation of “consequence culture.”

But soon the tactics of the enforcers came unravelled. Elon Musk bought Twitter. With the conflict between Israel and Gaza, Jewish progressives who had bought into the racial norms found themselves accused of being racist oppressors. Making them think that maybe all accusations of racism are not valid after all. University presidents were brought before a Congressional committee, which demanded that they protect Jews from demonstrations that made them feel unsafe. “Suddenly, the rhetoric of safety and harm that had been used by the left was being deployed against it.” With Trump’s re-election, progressives learned that even many non-white voters supported him out of repugnance for political correctness.

Chait quotes an activist: “I think there was a time where it felt like the liberal-left coalition had essentially won the culture war, and now it was simply a matter of enforcement. . . .But that’s clearly wrong. We didn’t, and a lot of us overestimated our power to enforce our preferred norms.”

Exactly! Conversely, we conservatives have assumed that we have lost the culture wars. Maybe that is giving the other side too much credit.

Chait now thinks the illiberal left is dead. He asks, when was the last time you heard of someone losing their job because of a social media mob? Now he worries about the illiberal right. He notes that the same corporate titans who caved before the pressure of leftist mobs is now caving to do homage to Donald Trump.

I’m not totally convinced that these issues are over. But a liberalism that “comes to its senses” could be a more formidable opponent to conservatives. Especially if conservatives get cocky like the progressives did and fail to come to their senses.

HT: David N. Gray

Photo by Vanessa Pike-Russell via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Luther Classical College & Other New Schools

Last updated on: January 5, 2025 at 4:36 pm By Gene Veith

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Yesterday we discussed the prospects of reform in higher education, concluding that founding a new college on better principles may be easier and quicker than reforming an existing college. Today, new colleges are coming into existence, including one where I am going to teach part-time.

The Federalist‘s executive editor Joy Pullman has written an article about some of these alternative new institutions entitled Cowboys, Billionaires, And Pastors Break Tough Ground To Build Great Books Colleges.

Some of these are secular, such as the University of Austin, Ralston College, and New College of Florida. These are committed specifically to free speech and academic freedom, ideals that were once universal in the academy but that lately have given way to cancel culture and campus speech codes.

Pullman also cites a number of new conservative Catholic schools, such as the College of Saint Joseph the Worker, Wyoming Catholic College, and Catholic Polytechnic University. She also mentions conservative Protestant schools, such as New St. Andrews and Patrick Henry College, where I used to be a literature professor and Provost. (She notes that PHC students going into the legal profession outscore the Ivy League on the LSAT, the test required for getting into law schools. PHC’s emphasis on academic excellence is something I’m particularly proud of.)

Pullman devotes the most space to Luther Classical College in Casper, Wyoming, which will welcome its first class this Fall. I’ll be on its faculty–that is to say, I’ll be an adjunct faculty member, a part-timer. I’m not coming out of retirement or moving to Wyoming. We worked it out so that I’ll be in residence for several weeks each semester. It will be good for me to do some teaching again, and my wife and I are looking forward to spending time in the wild West once again.

Luther Classical College, as well as most of these other new institutions that Pullman discusses, is a classical school. It offers “liberal education,” not in the sense of political progressivism nor in the sense of “the humanities,” as in most universities today, which have turned the West’s most enduring approach to education into just another disembodied academic specialty. Rather, “liberal” in the sense of freedom, an education designed for “liberty” and for equipping free citizens.

The curriculum of these schools is built around the Great Books, the key thinkers and creators who have formed our civilization, the legacy we must hand down if that civilization is to continue. A liberal education is also integrated, with every subject tied to all the rest, as opposed to the hyper-specialization of contemporary universities, in which a student might learn much about one subject while remaining ignorant of the others.

Luther Classical will also be distinctly Lutheran, with faculty, staff, and students all committed to the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions. There is a place for Christian schools that are open to the whole range of Christians; for Christian schools with a missional goal that welcome non-Christians in the hope of evangelizing them; for denominational schools that have a “critical mass” from that particular tradition along with some students outside that tradition. There is also a place for secular schools. But there are also advantages in everyone being united in theology, and that’s the route Luther Classical has chosen to follow. The Lutheran educational tradition has been defined as the classical liberal arts, plus Lutheran catechesis, so Luther Classical will do a lot with theology.

Let me clear up some misconceptions that I have been hearing. Some people in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod are indignant that we are starting a new college at a time when the colleges in the Concordia University System need the church’s support, with some of them shutting down. The Concordia University schools are full-service institutions, offering scores of majors and vocational tracks. Luther Classical occupies a niche quite different from that of the CUS schools.

The kind of education offered by Luther Classical will be excellent preparation for teachers in the burgeoning number of classical Lutheran day schools. LCC will also offer the ancient languages, so it will be good for pre-seminary students and I realize that the Concordias compete for those. But by far the most students go to college for vocational majors, such as Business and Computer Science, so for those the Concordias are the place to go.

Though “liberal education” is often contrasted with “vocational education,” LCC’s commitment to Lutheran theology means a strong emphasis on vocation, which means most importantly our callings in the family, the state, and the church. A liberal education, which has the effect of sharpening the mind on many levels, can lead to a range of occupations and professions. LCC is even partnering with a vo-tech school in Casper, so that students can spend two years with the liberal arts and then pursue a technical trade.

Besides, LCC is designed to never have more than 300 students. It will always be intentionally small, so as to hold costs down and to ensure the kind of intimate community that works best for this kind of learning.

Not only will LCC refuse money from the federal government, it will not take money from Synod. It operates under the auspices of Mt. Hope Lutheran Church in Casper, not the LCMS.

So I think its impact on the Concordia University System will be minimal.

For more information, go to the LCC website. See also these talks by Rev. Christian Preus, the pastor of Mt. Hope and a board member of LCC, here and here.

Maybe some day you or your children will show up in one of my classes!

Illustration: Projected campus plans for Luther Classical College [not yet built out] via LCC website.

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Today’s Wise Men Seeking Jesus

Last updated on: January 4, 2025 at 6:58 pm By Gene Veith

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Epiphany yesterday commemorated the wise men from the East who journeyed a long way to find Jesus. Today other wise men and wise women are also, after a long journey, finding Jesus.

We’ve blogged about the “New Theists,” the writers and thinkers who have displaced the “new atheists” and are coming to Christianity. The Free Press has published an article about the phenomenon by Peter Savodnik entitled How Intellectuals Found God, with the deck, “Almost 150 years after Nietzsche said ‘God is dead,’ some of our most important thinkers are getting religion.”

I don’t know if these are “our most important thinkers,” but they include quite a few “public intellectuals,” the ones who interact with the general public as opposed to academic specialists such as Jordan Peterson, plus bright tech entrepreneurs such as Peter Thiel, and pop culture figures such as Russell Brand. Savodnik, the senior editor at The Free Press, talks at special length with two of his writers, the historian Niall Ferguson and his wife whom we’ve blogged about Ayaan Hirsi Ali, both of whom make clear that their newly found faith is much more than a “cultural Christianity.”

Free Press has a paywall, but it makes some articles available to the public and with a free subscription. What I want to do here is simply quote some of the interesting things that were said in the article:

[Niall Ferguson] “You can’t organize a society on the basis of atheism. It’s fine for a small group of people to say, ‘We’re atheist, we’re opting out,’ ” he said, “but, in effect, that depends on everyone else carrying on. If everyone else says, ‘We’re out,’ then you quickly descend into a maelstrom like Raskolnikov’s nightmare”—in which Rodion Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, envisions a world consumed by nihilism and atomism tearing itself apart. “The fascinating thing about the nightmare is that it reads, to anyone who has been through the twentieth century, like a kind of prophecy.”

[Russell Brand] “I know a lot of people are cynical about the increasing interest in Christianity and the return to God but, to me, it’s obvious. As meaning deteriorates in the modern world, as our value systems and institutions crumble, all of us become increasingly aware that there is this eerily familiar awakening and beckoning figure that we’ve all known all our lives within us and around us. For me, it’s very exciting.”

[Jordan Peterson] “I would say God is hyper-real. God is the reality upon which all reality depends.”

[Andrew Sullivan] “The feeling”—of believing—“will vary. Sometimes, there’s no feeling. Sometimes, you’re overwhelmed. The point really is to escape feeling as such—our emotions are not what prove anything. The genius of ritual is that it allows us not to articulate our feelings. It allows us to express our faith through an act.”

[Paul Kingsworth] “If you ever meet a holy person, you look at them and you think, Wow, that’s really something—you know, I would love to be like that,” he said. “How does that happen? The culture,” by contrast, “doesn’t have any spiritual heart at all. It’s as if we think we can just junk thousands of years of religious culture, religious art, religious music, chuck it all out the window, and we’re just building and creating junk.”

[Father Jonah Teller, priest of a Catholic church in Greenwich Village] “The world many people have grown up in is one in which you have the ability to be your own God. You should have it simply because you want it, whatever it may be. Or not have it, and that can include your own existence—a rejection of simply being.” But the fact of our existence is a testament to God’s love for us, he said. “We are always wanted,” Father Jonah said. “We are always loved. This is the most important thing. God is not a mindfulness hack or a wellness exercise. It’s not—‘I found this ethical system that gets results, and therefore, I will choose it.’ It’s not a choice. It’s an encounter with an actual, personal love.”

Illustration: Three Magi: Detail from the Nativity of Christ Icon by Ted via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

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The Workers of the World Are Uniting

Last updated on: December 28, 2024 at 5:27 pm By Gene Veith

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“Workers of the world, unite!” So Marx concluded The Communist Manifesto. Today, it is happening. Not the way Marx or his ideological heirs intended. Rather, across the globe, working class citizens are voting out the progressive elite that has governed them for so long with so little to show for it.

A lead article in the Wall Street Journal proclaims The Progressive Moment in Global Politics Is Over. A team of three international reporters–Bertrand Benoit, David Luhnow, and Vipal Monga–gives the evidence. (The article is behind a paywall, but I’ll give you the gist.)

They say, “This past year showed that the progressive politics that dominated most industrialized countries over the past two decades or more is shifting to the right, fueled by working-class anxieties over the economy and immigration, and growing fatigue with issues from climate change to identity politics.”

What has happened with the re-election of Donald Trump is happening in country after country. Already, three-fourths of the governments of the member states in the European Union are led by or are in a coalition with a right-of-center party.

The left and center-left governments of Germany and France have fallen, with right and center-right parties winning in recent parliamentary elections and working to form governing coalitions. Canada’s left-leaning prime minister Trudeau has become deeply unpopular and his governing demise seem imminent.

The only outlier is Great Britain, who voted in a Labour government led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, but after only six months his popularity has plummeted. The gainers are not the Tories, members of the “Conservative Party,” which was ousted after 14 rules of ineffective rule, but the populist Reform Party.

It isn’t that the working class has turned “conservative,” exactly. Marx was right that workers have grievances and class antagonisms, though he was wrong about their nature and their solutions. There were times when populism took a leftwing form, but in a time when the left has become the elitists and the establishment, the populist reaction is to the right. Says the article:

In country after country, many working-class voters—especially those outside the biggest cities—are signaling the same thing: They mistrust the establishment—from academics to bankers to traditional politicians—and feel these elites are out of touch and don’t care about people like them. . . .

“It’s a broad shift that goes across countries,” said Ruy Teixeira, a lifelong Democrat who now works for the center-right American Enterprise Institute think tank. “Working-class people are just p*ssed off—about immigration, about all the culture war stuff, and the relatively poor economic performance that has shaped the working-class experience in the 21st century.”. . .

Far-right parties “have solidified around a constant, ongoing critique of elites,” said Stefan Marschall, professor of political science at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. “Whereas right-of-center parties, which are much more firmly anchored in the political system, can’t really engage in this classic elite criticism.”

But existing “conservative” parties are considered part of the establishment and are run by the elite. Besides, the conservative parties want to slash government social spending, support free trade, and have made their peace with causes such as climate change and the European Union. The populists don’t like that. Nor do they like the left’s green agenda, which has sent energy costs soaring and has hurt manufacturing jobs, the left’s multiculturalism with its support of unassimilated immigration, which has sent crime rates soaring in historically peaceful European nations, or the left’s constant scolding of its old working class constituency in the name of the culture wars.

Parliamentary democracies tend to have multiple parties across the entire political spectrum that must form coalitions to gain a legislative majority that can choose a prime minister, who, in turn, can form a cabinet and thus, as they say, “a new government.” So the new populist parties are sometimes forming coalitions with traditional conservative parties. Europe still has its fascist legacy–there were different fascist parties in most nations of Europe during the pre-war years–so that is coming back with some, though by no means all, of the new populist parties. Traditional conservatives and “center-right” populists, however, are resisting that influence and are refusing to form coalitions with extremists.

The United States, with its two-party system, makes for democracies that are more stable. The populists have put Donald Trump into office, and the old style of conservatism is mostly out of power in the new Republican Party.

Now that the workers of the world are uniting, we’ll have to see if they can govern.

Photo: Demonstration of Farmers in Paris by Croquant via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 . [Sign: “No country without farmers.”]

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The Outlook for 2025

Last updated on: January 2, 2025 at 9:01 am By Gene Veith

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We’ve made our predictions for the new year. Today I’d like us to think about what we know is actually in store for us in 2025, though we don’t know exactly how some of these issues will play out. I also want to look at some predictions from experts and what the expectations are from the general public, both in America and globally.

What to Watch For

Trump’s Tariffs. Will President Trump in his second administration really apply the 20% and higher tariffs that he has been talking about? Or will he use that as a threat to get more favorable treatment for American products in world markets? If he does apply them, what will that do? Start up major inflation again, plus a job-killing retraction of American industry because other countries will retaliate with their own tariffs on our products? Or will the cut-off of imports mean an upsurge in American industry as it fills the void of imported products with those that are American-made? We’ll just have to see what happens.

Ukraine & Russia. Trump says that he will insist that Europe do more for Ukraine, increasing their defense spending more than the 2% that NATO requires but is not getting. If that takes, the Ukraine will get more help than it is getting already. The new Vice President J. D. Vance has said that he doesn’t care what happens to Ukraine, reflecting a desire many Republicans to just stop sending so many of our weapons into that conflict. Might Trump’s threats to cut off the Ukraine lead to a negotiated ceasefire that would stop the war? Again, we’ll just have to see.

Israel & Gaza. Israel has made peace with Hezbollah and Iran by defeating them. The Israelis have also conquered Gaza, though Hamas continues to exist in a much degraded form. When will Israel just declare victory and go home? What role might the new Trump administration play in that?

China. What will China do? It has been building up its military and its technology in a threatening way. And yet it is facing major economic problems. And it is doubtless looking at Russia, realizing that a mighty military force can be decimated by a seemingly weaker power, given the capabilities of modern military technology.

DOGE. Will Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy really be able to cut trillions out of federal spending, eliminate unneeded agencies, and thus drastically shrink the administrative state? If so, that would be an achievement for the ages. Or will the entrenched political interests be successful in their resistance?

Pentagon. Can the American military be reformed–its leadership strengthened, its recruitment problems solved, its technology updated, and its moral improved–so that it becomes a formidable force once again that can deter our potential enemies and overwhelmingly defeat any enemy that decides to take us on?

Immigration. President Trump has vowed to deport immigrants who are here illegally. That would be a huge task. His administration is planning to start with the thousands whom a court has already served with a deportation notice, mostly because they have been convicted of committing crimes. It’s a scandal that they are still here. Expect huge outcries about the deportation process. Will Trump be able to pull this off? And if he does, what will the loss of millions of consumers and workers do to the economy? The construction and agricultural industries are already sounding alarms. Will American workers fill the void? We’ll have to see what happens.

Other Predictions

Various experts are making their predictions. The investment banking company Saxo enlisted some to make forecasts to help their clients [my comments in brackets]:

Trump 2.0 blows up the US dollar

As the new Trump administration turns the global financial system on its head with huge tariffs, the world scrambles to find alternatives to the dollar. [Me: There will still be no alternatives to the dollar. A trade war might end in America’s favor. Or it might not.]

China unleashes CNY 50 trillion stimulus to reflate its economy

Having created history’s most epic debt bubble, China boldly bets that fiscal stimulus to the tune of trillions of CNY is the only answer. [Me: If China does that, its economy will become even weaker.]

Electrification boom ends OPEC

As electric vehicles become more affordable, could oil-rich OPEC become irrelevant in 2025 and find itself on the ash heap of history? [Me: I highly doubt it! We’ll still be using oil, including to generate electricity, to a long time to come. Why? See the next prediction.]

US imposes AI data centre tax as power prices run wild

With tech giants sucking up power supplies for their new AI data centres, utility bills skyrocket and an outraged public demands action. [Not just AI but EVs and cryptocurrencies will suck up power supplies. When utility bills skyrocket, the outraged public will turn to cheap oil for their energy needs.]

Expectations

But what are people expecting in 2025?

Americans

According to a survey by You.Gov, 18% of Americans think 2025 will be “a great year for the country”; 21% think it will be good; 16% think it will be OK; 17% think it will be bad; 18% think it will be terrible. Among Republicans, 69% believe 2025 will be a great or a good year; among Independents, 29% believe that; among Democrats, 19% have that level of optimism.

And yet, Americans are much more optimistic about their own personal prospects. Among Americans as a whole, nearly half (49%) believe they themselves will have a great (21%) or good (27%) year;

Breaking it down politically, 64% of Republicans expect they will have a good or great year; 42% of Democrats think that; as do 40% of Independents.

Globally

The Danish international marketing company Ipsos surveyed people in 33 countries. Here is a summary of its findings. (Go to the site for details.)

Seven in ten (71%) say they are optimistic 2025 will be better than this year, below the level of positivity seen before the pandemic.
Europeans [are] pessimistic the global economy will improve. While on a global level people are most positive the economy will stronger than in recent years, in Europe a number of countries are less positive in their outlook than last year.
People expect greater regulation of tech industry. Back in 2021, when we last asked this question, 38% expected their government to introduce strict rules for large tech companies, in 2024 this has risen to 47%.
Fewer think stronger laws to fight climate change will be introduced.The proportion who think their government will introduce stronger targets to reduce carbon emissions is down 3pp [percentage points] compared to last year (now 52%).

Illustration: “Great Expectations,” Advent Sermon Series created by Hope Church North Park [in San Diego] via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0

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Your Predictions for 2025

Last updated on: December 26, 2024 at 6:07 pm By Gene Veith

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What do you think will happen–or might happen–in 2025?

This is the time to hazard a guess in our annual contest to see who can make the best prediction for the year ahead. When 2025 draws to a close, we will review the predictions and proclaim a winner, as we did on yesterday’s post.

You may be the next winner of the GlutenFree Prize, a non-physical honor named after the reader, whose handle is BernankeGlutenFree, who won the 2020 prize for predicting COVID! The winning guesses are not always that dramatic–one contestant won for some detailed projections about the price of eggs, among other things.

Here are the instructions from last year and the years before that:

The custom on this blog on [or around] New Year’s Day is for readers to predict what they think will happen over the course of the year ahead. Then, once the year is over, on or around the next New Year’s Eve, we will revisit those predictions and see who made the best one. . . .

The predictions can be weighty or light, serious or whimsical. Winning predictions will likely be highly specific. They tend to seem highly unlikely at the time they are made, but then, to our surprise, they happen anyway. The winning prediction makes us think, “How could anyone possibly know THAT was going to happen?”

These are free posts, so you do not need to be a subscriber to make a prediction or see the results next year.

Also, these are predictions, not prophecies that claim supernatural authority. The Deuteronomy 18:21-22 principle will not be enforced.

I’ll go first. . . .

(1) In the first year of his second year, President Donald Trump will apply his expertise in the art of the deal to Russia/Ukraine and to Israel/Gaza, brokering a permanent peace fire in both conflicts. For this, he will confound his critics by winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

(2) [A replay of my prediction for 2024, which didn’t quite happen, so I am trying it again for 2025.] Woke progressivism will fade, as its pretension of intersectionality collapses in anti-semitism, and corporations, entertainers, politicians, and academics “awaken” to its true nature and move on. This will result in a return to a more old-fashioned liberalism in the Democratic party, which will attempt to recapture the working class by removing what ordinary voters most despise on the Left.

(3) The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will create a huge indignant uproar in Washington, D.C., for recommending the shutdown of long-standing government agencies, suggestions that President Trump will implement, but will prove hugely popular among voters for saving billions of dollars. As a result, the Republican Party will return to a more old-fashioned conservatism and its former identity as the cost-cutting, balanced-budget party.

Now your turn. . . .

Illustration by Sakuragirl via GoodFon.com CC BY-NC 4.0