How the Left Was Left
19th March 2024
The changing character of the American Right is a favorite topic of liberal commentators and politicians. The arguments made on this score are invariably not just observations but evaluations: the Right is getting worse—a lot worse. The Right has become more radical and authoritarian, and today’s leaders of the Right are a big step down, on the liberal telling, from the allegedly sober and responsible leaders of the American Right in the past—including Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Bushes, all of whom were reviled as fascists in their time.
It is true that American politics have changed considerably in the last few decades. But the changes have not been on the Right alone. However one would judge the overall state of American liberalism today, it is undeniable as an empirical matter that many intellectual and moral reflexes that prominently and reliably characterized the Left in the past are no longer evident. And these changes are just as worthy of our attention as any analysis of the American Right.