Liberals, Shipwrecked

“The passage makes plain what Lilla is up to—and up against. He wants the Democratic Party to abandon identity politics for the sake of its electoral viability. Effecting beneficial changes requires wielding power, he argues, and in democracies, securing power requires winning elections. In America—vast, diverse, and unruly—such victories can be secured only through “the hard and unglamorous task of persuading people very different from [oneself] to join a common effort.” Lilla thus finds it necessary to instruct fellow Democrats that elections are neither prayer meetings nor therapy sessions nor seminars nor “teaching moments.””

https://www.city-journal.org/html/liberals-shipwrecked-15410.html

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/08/25/a_liberal_calls_out_his_party_for_its_identity_politics_134836.html

 

 

Share Button

2 Replies to “Liberals, Shipwrecked”

  1. There are wayyyyy too many people on the left who think it’s better to coerce or cajole people into becoming the same as them, or at least Shane and supress this “very different from them.” Lilla is taking the civil society social compact approach. I may not agree with him burn i think I like him.