Taking Liberalism Seriously

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2022-05-20 00:00:05

Seldom has a newspaper opinion piece elicited as many thoughtful responses as Ezra Klein’s New York Times essay “The People Who Hate Liberalism Are Teaching Us What It Is.”

Klein, a Vox co-founder, podcaster, blogger, policy analyst and now a Times opinion columnist, is not easy to pin down politically. A self-described progressive, he’s a public policy wonk, a pragmatist and a contrarian, who wants to bring clarity and an analytical edge to public debates, political arguments and social trends.

But in this opinion column, he comes across, somewhat unexpectedly, as a champion of liberalism at a time when liberalism in its multiple dimensions—liberal democracy, liberal internationalism, the liberal world order, liberal democracy, liberal capitalism, economic liberalism, liberal individualism—faces relentless challenges from the left and the right.

Klein’s overarching argument is that at a time when liberalism “has been battered by financial crises, the climate crisis, checkered pandemic responses, right-wing populists and a rising China … Ukraine’s refusal to bend the knee to Vladimir Putin has reminded the West that … life under liberalism is worth fighting for.”