Liberal movements lost me. This is why.

The Jews essentially invented liberalism. In recent years, nefarious actors have corrupted it beyond measure.

“Palestine” is one of the most illiberal concepts on this planet, yet championed by liberal movements. (photo: Patrick Perkins/Unsplash)

Please consider supporting our mission to help everyone better understand and become smarter about the Jewish world. A gift of any amount helps keep our platform free of advertising and accessible to all.

---

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

---

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a far-Left U.S. politician, told her social media followers that she did not attend Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration on Monday because, and I quote: “I don’t celebrate rapists.”

This is the same politician who has spent the past 15 months apologizing for Hamas (i.e. jihadist rapists) and much of her political career demonizing Israel, a staunch U.S. ally.

Yet, she is not alone.

According to a new Harvard/Harris poll, one quarter of U.S. Democrats (the “liberal” party in America) support Hamas. This should not surprise anyone, since many so-called “liberals” have completely lost the script by corrupting the concepts of liberalism and destroying a school of thought that has offered a load of benefits to our world.

Unlike many so-called “liberals,” I am not a sheep that keeps his head down and subscribes to groupthink. I call out nonsense when I see it, no matter who or what the political alternatives are. And right now, many “liberal” movements are imploding because of increasingly illiberal politicians, policies, and partnerships.

Some may rightfully assess this implosion as “Moral Decline,” a term coined by Livy, the great Roman historian. The danger of “Moral Decline” is of course non-partisan. But when a group’s morals decline, civic virtue flies out the window.

Civic virtue is not always meant to be pleasant or enjoyable. It drives someone to leave a political party because they object to the decadence on display there.

Yet civic virtue is locked in a bitter war with social conformity, the soothing voice in your head that tells you to fit in, be agreeable, and avoid confrontation. It is an opiate, a drug anyone must take before they can participate in any kind of social gathering in an inoffensive manner.

And the Jews were amongst the first to display civic virtue on such a grand scale, an outgrowth of liberalism as we know it. The core ideas of liberalism — universal human dignity, individual freedom, equality before the law, and the pursuit of justice — find their earliest and most consistent expression in the Jewish tradition.

The Hebrew Bible, for instance, emphasizes the inherent value of every individual as being created in the image of God, a revolutionary concept in the ancient world. This theological principle underpins the belief that all people have inherent worth, a cornerstone of modern liberal thought.

Moreover, the Jewish legal and ethical tradition, rooted in the Torah and elaborated through millennia of rabbinic interpretation, has continuously stressed justice, fairness, and the protection of the vulnerable. The injunction to "love the stranger" and the repeated emphasis on caring for widows, orphans, and the poor reflect a profound commitment to social responsibility and equality — values that resonate deeply with liberal ideals.

The Jewish intellectual tradition also contributed significantly to the development of modern democratic governance. The emphasis on communal responsibility, debate, and participatory decision-making in Jewish communities served as a precursor to the democratic institutions we see today. Jewish thinkers like Spinoza, Moses Mendelssohn, and later, figures of the Enlightenment and beyond, played pivotal roles in shaping the philosophical underpinnings of liberal democracy, blending ancient Jewish principles with modern intellectual currents.

Finally, the Jewish experience of diaspora and marginalization fostered a unique perspective on the importance of pluralism, tolerance, and the protection of minority rights. These experiences reinforced the necessity of legal and societal frameworks that uphold individual freedoms and protect against tyranny and oppression, further solidifying the Jewish contribution to the liberal worldview.

In this light, the Jewish People have not only been participants in the liberal project but its architects, shaping its foundational principles and ensuring its resilience across centuries.

But over the past couple of decades, liberal movements around the world have pursued a pernicious strategy: an alignment of knowledge-based technocrats with growing demographic groups, seeking to elevate these groups while abandoning traditional liberal principles.

This shift involved fusing technocracy¹ with identity politics. In other words, technocrats would gain control over the levers of government and society, while identity groups would be offered greater opportunities, with select individuals elevated to elite positions within the government and society.

In practice, this approach created a new meritocratic-technocratic ruling class. Historically, liberal technocrats operated within a coalition to address diverse needs and ideas. However, this new framework reoriented their role, focusing on governing society as a centralized elite while integrating the priorities of identity-based factions into their agenda.

From the perspective of liberal leadership, this strategy seemed like a win-win. The technocratic elite could steer policy largely free from mainstream accountability, while identity groups could advance their deeply held but often unpopular agendas.

Meanwhile, the broader movement maintained the moral high ground, presenting itself as the champion of justice and progress without requiring significant sacrifices. This moral positioning also gave them justification to vilify opponents as regressive, selfish, or hostile to the vulnerable.

Over time, this strategy has shaped liberal movements into their current form: a fusion of social justice ideology (framed through an oppressor/oppressed lens), technocratic elitism, partnerships between public and private elites, and the rise of cancel culture.

But much of this evolution is at odds with foundational Western values.

Meritocratic technocracy often clashes with democratic principles and liberalism’s ethos of social equality and upward mobility. Identity politics undermines universalism, while the unpopular views championed by certain identity groups often conflict with Enlightenment ideals. Implementing these ideas across half the Western world would be so contentious in a democratic context that it frequently relies on coercive or authoritarian tactics.

The accompanying moral posturing and practice of canceling dissent are not only unattractive but also damaging to the credibility of any political movement. Moreover, the alienation and disdain for working-class and middle-class citizens starkly contrast with the West’s foundational belief in social mobility and opportunity. This ideological project, at its core, is misaligned with the fundamental values of Western republics.

For a time — about a decade — this reimagined liberalism appeared viable. Liberal movements achieved significant successes advancing their agendas, but this required minimizing or obscuring the underlying ideology. It explains why many liberal leaders spent years vehemently denying that their approach represented a departure from traditional liberalism, claiming continuity with their historical values.

This denial also fueled suspicions among outsiders. To observers beyond the liberal movements, the entire project appeared implausible, even conspiratorial. The dissonance between the stated goals and the apparent methods gave rise to perceptions of a hidden agenda orchestrated by unseen forces.

In recent years, the gap between what liberal movements profess to be doing and their actual actions has become increasingly evident. The institutions and progressive organizations supporting these agendas now wield significant power and have enacted too many transformative policies for their intentions to remain opaque. The reality of this ideological shift can no longer be concealed.

To add insult to injury, liberals have resorted to fear-mongering surrounding their opponents to cover up their own disasters. This is a wicked combination of being disingenuous and hypocritical, while incessantly refusing responsibility and accountability.

Enough already.

Until liberal movements are consistent with their ideology, I will take my support elsewhere — both in the U.S. and Israel. Here are a few examples:

• People who outwardly bill themselves as “humanitarians” did and said nothing about a 9-month-old baby being kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists on October 7, 2023. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but holding a baby hostage for over a year is not resistance.

• The same people who promoted the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign regarding the mass kidnapping of schoolgirls in Nigeria in 2014, said nothing about the girls and women who were brutally raped, murdered, and kidnapped on October 7th.

• Identity politics is not liberalism; it is illiberalism and populism. The same people who criticize Israel for being an “ethno-state” are demanding societal recognition and privileges based on their race/ethnicity. By reducing people to their group identities, they perpetuate division and tribalism — the very dynamics they claim to oppose — while hypocritically applying double standards to Israel.

• Hate speech is not free speech. Being a “free speech absolutist” is a form of extremism that turns free speech from a strength of liberalism into a glaring weakness. Allowing or overlooking hate speech against Jews and/or Israelis (i.e. “Zionists”) in the name of “free speech” is plainly unacceptable.

• “Anti-racism” is a lightly rebranded, pseudo-virtuous form of racism and a betrayal of everything “antiracism” is supposed to be. Somehow, “colored people” are allowed to be racist against “white people” and Jews are exempt from “anti-racism” because we are part of the “white oppressor class.” This is absurd.

• Liberalism is being afforded to groups that are inherently illiberal. It makes no sense that Jewish nationalism is for whatever reason intolerable, while Muslim imperialism is completely glossed over by liberal movements. Liberalism only works when all players are expected to play by the same set of rules.

Worst of all, many “liberals” are constantly complaining about their opponents’ side of the street while not cleaning theirs. When will extreme leftists (and those who excuse or overlook them) realize that many of their opponents’ gains in popularity are direct reactions to these disastrous “liberal” policies?

We keep hearing from “liberals” about “authoritarian” and “fascist” Right-wing parties and politicians — but, in many cases, this is nothing more than baseless fear-mongering.

And don’t just take it from me. Jake Mackey, a professor at a liberal arts college in California and co-founder of “Free Black Thought,” recently wrote: “I am 53 years old. The last four years amount to the most repressive, totalitarian era I've ever lived through.”²

Mackey quoted Noam Dworman, host of the Comedy Cellar Podcast, who said:

“… the general atmosphere of fear that we lived through as people who want to speak and live our lives freely — if all that change in American society had the fingerprints on it of a particular leader, that leader would be a fascist. If any leader had brought that change into our lives, that would be the most fascist experience with a leader we have ever seen in this country.”

But the author of all this change was not a particular leader, according to Mackey, who added: “It was the Left.” Mackey calls this “socially distributed authoritarianism” with “no fascist leader needed.” Mackey went on to mention that it was:

• Fear of retaliation from the Left, not from a fascist leader, that caused him to lay awake at night on more occasions than he can count, terrified that a student might have misinterpreted something he said in class and initiated a cancelation campaign against me

• Fear of intolerant leftists among his colleagues that made him censor himself, as a yet-untenured faculty member, when he was asked to report on my findings about the efficacy — which is nil or worse — of diversity training

• Fear to tell any but their most trusted colleagues about how students had stood up in class to denounce professors for ideological apostasy or to accuse them of “traumatizing” or “harming” them by teaching basic scientific facts

• Fear of saying one wrong word will be the end of a 30-year career

Hence why I can no longer respectably call myself a liberal — not because I don’t believe in liberalism, but because mainstream liberal movements have totally abandoned the principles that define true liberalism.

They have replaced the ideals of individual freedom, universal human rights, open debate, and tolerance with dogmatic identity politics, authoritarian social control, and an obsession with conformity to ideological purity that trumps pluralism.

What once stood for the empowerment of individuals and the pursuit of justice has been distorted into a framework that prioritizes group identity over personal agency and suppresses dissent in the name of progress.

Liberalism, as I understand and cherish it, no longer resides in these movements; it has been hollowed out, leaving a façade that betrays its foundational values.

---

1. The government or control of society or industry by an elite of technical experts

2. “The last four years were the most repressive of my lifetime.” Unsafe Science.