The New Liberal Order

Time by Peter Beinart | Nov. 14, 2008 (News Analysis)

In America, political majorities live or die at the intersection of two public yearnings: for freedom and for order. A century ago, in the Progressive Era, modern American liberalism was born, in historian Robert Wiebe's words, as a "search for order." America's giant industrial monopolies, the progressives believed, were turning capitalism into a jungle, a wild and lawless place where only the strong and savage survived. By the time Roosevelt took office ... Full Story »

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3.6
 by Derek Hawkins - Nov. 14, 2008

A very well presented piece -- but it failed to completely convince me on two counts. First, Beinart doesn't lay out a clear explanation of how the New Left of the 1960s translated into the mainstream liberalism of the past two decades. For me this is a hole in the narrative and deserved a paragraph or so somewhere near the top of page two. Second, he seems to downplay conservatism's huge sway in the 1990s and early 2000s. He writes as if beginning with Gingrich's Congress the Republicans' trajectory has been downward. I find this assessment to be a bit weak.

I spent a lot of time reading this, and I think Beinart's attempt is commendable. This is a very well written and insightful piece. But it may be too grandiose for its own good.

(21 answers)

Derek's Rating

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