The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics

For nearly 40 years, Ronald Reagan's vision--small government, lower taxes, and self-reliant individualism--has remained America's dominant political ideology. The Democratic Party has offered no truly convincing competing vision. Instead, American liberalism has fallen under the spell of identity politics. Mark Lilla argues with acerbic wit that liberals, originally driven by a sincere desire to protect the most vulnerable Americans, have now unwittingly invested their energies in social movements rather than winning elections. This abandonment of political priorities has had dire consequences. But, with the Republican Party led by an unpredictable demagogue and in ideological disarray, Lilla believes liberals now have an opportunity to turn from the divisive politics of identity, and offer positive ideas for a shared future. A fiercely-argued, no-nonsense book, The Once and Future Liberal is essential reading for our momentous times.

About the Author :
Mark Lilla is Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and a prizewinning essayist for the New York Review of Books and other publications worldwide. His books include The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction; The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West; and The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Review :
'[Lilla's] argument is an important counter-weight to the prevailing wisdom.' 'The Once and Future Liberal is a dead-on diagnosis of what ails the Democrats.' 'A deep and provocative brief on what has gone wrong, and what liberals, moderates, and progressives might do about it' 'Lilla in his new book issues an important, passionate and highly critical wake-up call to liberals who, he believes, are stuck in the mud. . . . Lilla's message to liberals is timely and welcome.' ‘Lilla is no conservative. Yet it would be hard to find a better skewering of modern American liberalism than in this slim volume . . . Lilla’s book is a sizzling polemic.’ 'A dead-on diagnosis' 'Mark Lilla's The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics has annoyed a great many people in the US, though its message is nothing but common sense: in the age of Trumpery, nothing can be done for vulnerable minorities unless liberals get themselves elected to positions of influence. An urgent and important book by one of the clearest and most inspired political thinkers of the day.' 'Challenging and powerful' 'Lilla masterfully sets a dialogue in this short book.' 'A terrific short book about the decline of American liberalism explaining how they went from the successes of FDR's coalition to the pitfalls of today's identity politics. It's an accessible book that's essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how we arrived in the Trump era and where the Democrats go from here.' - 'Lilla seeks to summon liberals to a politics of broad national interest' 'An urgent and important book' 'A stunning indictment of the left's fatal descent into a bedlam of identity- and a stirring call to the power of shared citizenship and the universality of liberal ideas. Brilliant and necessary.' 'If I could magically place a copy of Mark Lilla's The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics into the hands of every Democratic Party politician, activist, major donor, pollster, and consultant in the country, I would . . . Lilla has written the most admirable and necessary political broadside in years.' 'Mark Lilla questions liberalism's intellectual foundations in order to make it forceful and successful . . . An important book.' 'Besides analysing how American liberals have lost both their appeal and their politi­cal power, The Once and Future Liberal proposes a way to make liberalism relevant again.'