A Positively Illiberal Approach to De-Throning Trumpism

Live and let live

Apr 30, 2025

Are we seeing the rise of American fascism? A world divided into sovereign or mob empires? The consolidation of homegrown oligarchic and plutocratic control? The eclipse of liberalism by reactionary populism or White Christian Nationalism? Apocalyptic evangelicalism? High-tech humanoid-robot accelerationism?

All of the above? We need to ask and answer this question because, to resist effectively, one must, ‘Know thine enemy.’

Illiberalism and its Discontents

And, I am beginning to think very differently about our enemy and how to fight it after listening to the NYT’s podcast interview Ezra Klein did of historian Steven Hahn, a couple of episodes ago.1

Hahn basically argues that it’s not historically accurate or helpful to think of what we’re experiencing as an unprecedented disruption or attack on liberalism — in this case, by a reactionary upsurge of autocracy and/or European-style fascism. He argues that liberalism is under attack, yes, but by something far more endemic, enduring, and ubiquitous in American life and history: a deeply rooted American “illiberalism.”

Hahn describes ‘illiberalism’ as a basic American feature, not as a bug. He encourages us to think of it as a persistent organizing force: a vast reservoir, not a wave. And he describes liberalism as a rarer, newer and less settled force. “Illberalism’ is a way of characterizing the default meaning and expectations of life for the vast majority of people who have lived and are currently living an American life.

In more colloquial parlance, I want to say that one can see ‘illiberalism’ as America’s ‘resting bitch face.’ (I apologize if anyone finds that phrase offensive but I hear it used in a lot of situations and it almost always strikes a chord. I think the ‘resting bitch face’ thing works here as an analogue for a type of normative sour/dour state of skeptical or vaguely unimpressed repose into which people lapse routinely.)

It is also not infrequently the face of very strongly held beliefs and settled practices including those that wave after wave of liberalism have sought to challenge and change or overcome.

As Hahn describes this illiberalism, he’s not suggesting that it’s inherently or always anti-liberal or bigoted, etc. Instead, he describes illiberalism as the complex and inconsistent but generally accepted ideas, beliefs, and aspirations in the everyday lives of people. It is the way of life that makes people comfortable in their own skins and their own communities.

Liberalism and its Contentiousness

But then, the periodic democratic stirrings of liberalism and liberals — as illustrated by the recent BLM movement — often bring very different takes on the question of whether particular illiberal notions and norms are or should, in fact, be settled. And when such liberal waves gain enough influence or force, the ideals of liberalism that normally just inflect our National Anthem, stately monuments, and our history books, can become live and hotly contested matters of public policy.

When this happens, liberalism disturbs the otherwise relative ‘comfort and joy’ of the settled status quo ante that all sorts of local, regional, ethnic, religious and other traditions and social currents have cultivated over generations in America.

Hahn provides many historical examples of the existence and consequences, if not the inevitability, of basic American ‘illiberalism’ as “a constant field of force” throughout American history — a history that consists of great achievements that most Americans are wont to celebrate, but one that has also enabled and normalized many awful things, such as:

The removal and decimation of the Native American populations,
American slavery and subsequent ongoing institutional and individual racism,
Repeated anti-immigrant upsurges,
McCarthyism,
The internment of Japanese Americans during WWII,
Misogyny and opposition to the expansion of women’s rights,
The bi-partisan consensus on crime and mass incarceration forged in the 1970’s that the #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) movement showed has effectively criminalized being a black male.
And more.

(This is admittedly a rather quick summary. I am surely not giving Hahn his due here. So do take this is as intended: as motivation to listen to or read him for yourself!)

The upshot here is that Hahn brings something really important to us in developing an actionable heuristic — an actionable explanatory framework.

For instance, I would argue that, from this perspective, the very mantra, ‘Make America Great Again,’ is a call for the Trump-inflamed and -led populist movement to attack and ‘remove’ pretty much the entire heritage and ongoing influences of liberalism and of liberals. MAGA represents the desire to go back not to a particular time, but to a mythic time, before liberal ideas and voices disrupted the ‘natural order of things’ — often understood as when earthly endeavors were supposedly organized and settled around the blessed dominion of white Christian men.

Hahn is so interesting and relevant right now because he is suggesting that we are in a familiar moment in our history where a very large number of people have been brought to the limits of their tolerance for liberal ideas and values. He further suggests that there is no reason liberals or anyone else should expect that all these millions of people can be placated by appeals to reason or facts, or moral suasion, or ‘the rule of law,’ etc.

Liberalism’s unsettled relationship with Power

In this regard, one of Hahn’s most important observations is that, “ . . . [P]art of the problem with liberalism is that it has never really dealt very well with the issues of power.” Liberals have difficulty gaining and holding the political power needed to effect sustained, significant advances over time.

In our time, decades of neoliberal economics have led to liberals and liberalism having become the managerial and professional elite — a major force in the organization and management of society. Hahn’s insight, I believe, is that to a significant extent, and contrary to much liberal orthodoxy, liberalism remains a bug, not a feature, in our society and history.

And, much to our collective ‘shock and awe,” liberalism now hangs on by a thread — as Trump and Musk are demonstrating.

The lesson here is that liberal gains are a product of particular historical/cultural and ideational moments that must ever and always contend with the ‘constant field of force of illiberalism.’ To win and sustain progress towards visions of a Just Society, liberalism needs a better understanding of the complexities and contradictions of gaining and holding power in our nation as against the reservoir of illiberalism.

At one point, Hahn says he was at a recent rally and was struck by a poster he saw carried by an older person that said, “I can’t believe I have to protest this shit again!”

We’ve all seen that poster at a recent demonstration.

But what Hahn says is that this is exactly the perspective that liberals and liberalism need to get over. We must come to grips with the idea that there is no ‘final victory’ to be had over ‘illiberalism.’

It’s not a wave, it’s a reservoir.

There will always be new and higher mountaintops to climb in the quest for Justice while, at the same time, the vast majority of people will always be needing and looking for ways to ‘settle down’ and ‘make a living’ as they can — even, even — while some other people cannot settle down quite so well, whether by choice or not.

The Seven Challenges (at least) for the Will to Power Liberalism

What are the implications of this? There are at least seven distinct challenges:

The first is to recognize that liberalism is a never-ending quest.
The second is the challenge of understanding and coming to grips with the ‘resting bitch face’ of American illiberalism.
The third is the role of cult-like adoration of and deference to someone like Donald Trump as a savior/leader.
The fourth is the ever-present right-wing brain trust behind right-wing, authoritarian quests for power, like Project 2025.
The fifth is the cabal of billionaire tech bros who have become increasingly untethered from any sense of responsibility for a greater good than amassing wealth and power so as to pursue visions of engineering fantastical new sorts of ‘escape rooms’ and of artificial-intelligence infused human life.
The sixth is the need for a major liberal ‘come to Jesus moment’ in our current situation that can become the basis of an actionable vision for progress toward a more perfect union. (I personally like the tack that Illinois Governor, Mike Pritzker is taking at the moment.)
The seventh is for liberals to actually make the changes in outlook, strategy, and tactics that can lead to winning and sustaining political power and popular support for a liberal/progressive agenda.

Most immediately, we must continue to resist and fight back against Trump’s success in dismantling our democratic Republic.

We must stop Trump’s corrupt and delusional quest for an imperial presidency and what horrors might lay beyond.

Assuming we can do these things, we must turn to the need to address the insecurities and lack of agency in vast segments of our population that aspiring autocrats can so easily and effectively turn into hatred, thuggery, and bigotry.

But, to do so, we must define — or, better, spell-out — not just for ourselves, but for everyone else, how Liberalism will make all lives better.

And I believe we will need some trust-worthy new voices who can rally and lead people in bring complementarity out of complexity and collaboration out of conflict and contradiction.

How about we all agree to ‘Live and Let Live’?

In this regard, I believe that it would be worthwhile to revisit an old American moto:

‘Live and let live.’

This familiar and seemingly simple concept could well be a fruitful place from which to acknowledge, defuse, and accommodate many of the complexities and contradictory impulses that have contributed to the evolution of MAGA.

Live and let live might also serve as a principle by which to forge common ground with many natural and needed allies among the many millions of people in our nation who believe that there must be a better way forward.

However we do it, we must find better ways to bring together the allies and the resources we need to win and hold the power sufficient to the progress we seek.

Jon Thinks Out Loud

Discussion about this post