The sad plight of “liberalism” is on display in a recent New Yorker book review by Corey Robin. The essay, “How Do We Survive the Constitution,” laments that American society is increasingly disgusted by government institutions. Polling reveals that Americans have never had less trust in government or mass media. The largest segment of American society are those who have no trust in the media.
A similar history can be told regarding Americans’ trust in Congress, the Presidency, all of government, education, academia, and medicine. As government has taken increasing control over these institutions, peoples’ trust in the institutions has plummeted.
Now those who call themselves “liberals” are in a state of panic–despite being in control of all major institutions. And from Corey Robin’s New Yorker book review, it seems that contemporary “liberalism” is mostly just an effort to save “institutions” from popular hatred. Reviewing “How Democracies Die,” by the Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Robin says that “liberals . . . felt betrayed not by their country but by its voters,” when Trump was elected president in 2016.
