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liberalism

Thomas Frank on “fake populism”

John Fea   |  February 20, 2025

Nathan Robinson, the editor of Current Affairs, starts his interview with author Thomas Frank by quoting from Frank’s 2016 book Listen, Liberal: “Now all political parties are alliances of groups with disparate interests, but the contradictions of the Democratic Party […]

Jerome Copulsky and Mark Noll on the moral framework undergirding America’s liberal order

John Fea   |  February 17, 2025

Over at Law & Liberty, Jerome Copulsky and Mark Noll talk about Copulsky’s new book American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberty Order. Here is the setup: Today we will be speaking to Jerome Copulsky and Mark Noll. The subject will […]

Liberals “abandoned the truism that arguments are true or false, irrespective of the race or the origins of the person who makes them.”

John Fea   |  January 14, 2025

Michael Ignatieff is the former leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Here is a taste of his New York Times piece, “I was born liberal. Defeat taught me our hidden reslience.” Ignatieff writes: “To rebuilt liberalism, we’ll need to […]

Is left-wing illiberalism dead?

John Fea   |  December 20, 2024

After living through the Dan Feller-SHEAR controversy and the James Sweet-AHA affair, the latter of which had a lot to do with my resignation as president of the Conference on Faith and History, I hope the illiberal fever that spread […]

Bruce Springsteen or Ta-Nehisi Coates?

John Fea   |  October 30, 2024

Dave Masciotra compares Bruce Springsteen’s liberalism with Ta-Nehisi Coates’s progressivism: By the turn of the century, the New Jersey native had already established himself as a rock and roll legend. But his artistic reaction to 9/11 enhanced his importance. Less […]

The Author’s Corner with Keidrick Roy

Rachel Petroziello   |  September 25, 2024

Keidrick Roy is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. This interview is based on his new book, American Dark Age: Racial Feudalism and the Rise of Black Liberalism (Princeton University Press, 2024). JF: What led you to […]

Damon Linker on the post-liberal Catholics driving J.D. Vance and the Trump campaign

John Fea   |  August 8, 2024

Linker compares today’s anti-liberal Catholic conservatives to the liberal Catholic conservatives who gathered around Richard John Neuhaus’s First Things twenty years ago. Linker is well-suited to make such comparisons. He was editor of First Things from 2004 to 2005. After […]

“The success narratives of modern liberal life leave little room for having a family.”

John Fea   |  June 11, 2024

Here is Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman at The New York Times: For young, secular, politically progressive men and women, having children has become something of an afterthought. Liberal conventional wisdom encourages people to spend their 20s on journeys of […]

Liberalism as religion?

John Fea   |  May 24, 2024

Over at his Substack, Damon Linker interviews political theorist Alexandre Lefebvre, author of Liberalism as a Way of Life. Here is a taste: DL: But what do you say to those who persist in religious belief when they respond that the […]

Should liberals “punch left”?

John Fea   |  May 11, 2024

Here is a taste of Jonathan Chait’s review of Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix’s Solidarity. The review is titled, “In Defense of Punching Left.” “The role of protest is another division between liberals and leftists. While both see protest as […]

What is going on at Dickinson College?

John Fea   |  May 7, 2024

Michael Smerconish, a political independent who promotes civility and democratic discourse on his Sirius XM radio show and CNN television program, will no longer deliver the 2024 commencement address at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Here is Penn Live: Dickinson […]

Robert Kagan on antiliberalism and Christian nationalism

John Fea   |  April 24, 2024

Here is an excerpt from Kagan’s book Rebellion: How Antiliberalism is Tearing America Apart. The excerpt is published today at The Washington Post: Trump not only acknowledges his goals, past and present; he promises to do it again if he […]

The Author’s Corner with Brian Judge

Rachel Petroziello   |  April 15, 2024

Brian Judge is a Policy Fellow at the Center for Human-Compatible AI at the University of California, Berkeley. This interview is based on his new book, Democracy in Default: Finance and the Rise of Neoliberalism in America (Columbia University Press, 2024). JF: […]

The Author’s Corner with Elizabeth Kalbfleisch

Rachel Petroziello   |  March 19, 2024

Elizabeth Kalbfleisch is Associate Professor of English at Southern Connecticut State University. This interview is based on her new book, Making the Radical University: Identity and Politics on the American College Campus, 1966–1991 (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024). JF: What led […]

The Author’s Corner with Scott Kamen

Rachel Petroziello   |  January 17, 2024

Scott Kamen is Assistant Professor of History at the University of New Mexico, Valencia. This interview is based on his new book, From Union Halls to the Suburbs: Americans for Democratic Action and the Transformation of Postwar Liberalism (University of […]

On the “perpetual panic” of liberal individualism

John Fea   |  January 10, 2024

Shadi Hamid is a columnist at The Washington Post and a research professor of Islamic studies at the Fuller Seminary. Here is a taste of his moving piece on the limits of liberal individualism: I can imagine being both more […]

“I began to feel like there’s a lot that not’s being said and a lot that’s not being written”

John Fea   |  November 27, 2023

The one thing that I did start doing that year (2020) was talk on the phone. I’ve never been a phone talker, but, of course, that’s all you had for a while. And I would have long conversations on the […]

The Author’s Corner with Emily Brooks

Rachel Petroziello   |  November 27, 2023

Emily Brooks is a Historian and Curriculum Writer at the New York Public Library’s Center for Educators and Schools. This interview is based on her new book, Gotham’s War within a War: Policing and the Birth of Law-and-Order Liberalism in World […]

What is a liberal?

John Fea   |  November 21, 2023

Cass Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School writing at The New York Times, defines liberalism in 34 points: See how Sunstein unpacks these points here.

Ross Douthat: A Christian conservative who lives among liberals and writes for them

John Fea   |  September 12, 2023

Here is Isaac Chotiner at The New Yorker: “Douthat is highly skilled at addressing liberal Times readers in a manner that makes clear he is not one of them, without allowing them to think that he actually holds views—about Donald Trump, say, […]

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