What Does 'Liberal' Even Mean Anymore?

I hope everyone is recovering nicely from their July 4th hangover. At 250 — hell, at 35 — those things aren’t single-day affairs anymore. Today’s episode is a conversation I had with Adrian Wooldridge about his new book, “The Revolutionary Center: The Lost Genius of Liberalism.” Adrian is the global business columnist at Bloomberg and was previously the political editor at The Economist. To be honest, I had intended to air this conversation in the run-up to our semiquincentennial. After all, the Declaration of Independence may well be the most famous liberal document ever written. But as the calendar worked out, our last episode before the Fourth was a paid episode, and I thought this conversation was a worthwhile listen for the wider GD universe. (Although, of course, if you appreciate this podcast, I encourage you to become a paid subscriber👇️) So I’m publishing it now, for folks to chew on as we return from the weekend’s celebrations. The word “liberal” gets thrown around a lot. It’s used to poke fun at the left (”resistance libs”) or chastise the right (”neolibs”), and in American politics today, it’s not clear what it even means. Adrian clearly defines liberalism and lays out a forceful case for why it’s a worthwhile worldview today, despite some of its failures. We talk about who can be a liberal, according to Adrian, both socialists and nationalists, but not populists. We discuss where the ideas came from and how they developed over the centuries, and how liberalism addresses the challenges of today. It was an enlightening (pun intended) conversation, and I hope you appreciate it too. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe