Social Libertarianism is the Only Antidote to Trumpism, Populism and Christian Nationalism
Liberals, let's drop the woke, and return to our 2000s success story
This is the first article in a series that will be my own thoughts on Donald Trump's return to power, the rise of the populist right across the West, and how to defend and promote liberalism in this context.
In light of Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 US Presidential Elections, there has been a lot of soul searching among people who can be broadly described as liberal or center-left. While there are several major reasons for Kamala Harris's loss, including the economy and immigration, I think the most important observation about this election is that young men voted substantially more Republican, compared to any time in the past twenty years. In 2004, which was also the last time the Republicans won the popular vote, Bush-43 won most demographics, but young people under 30 clearly broke for John Kerry. This was the start of a long period where a clear majority of young adults voted Democratic. Therefore, what happened on Nov 5 represents the reversal of something that has been fundamentally true for a generation. It is a shift that the Democrats clearly cannot ignore, if they still want to remain competitive in 2026 and 2028.
The movement of young men towards the right has been blamed on right-leaning podcasts, and often specifically Joe Rogan, who gave Trump a long interview and ultimately endorsed him. However, Rogan also said he would rather vote for Trump than Biden in 2020, and made some negative remarks about Biden too. It clearly didn't sway enough young men towards Trump back then. The fact is, what we are seeing with young men is a much bigger phenomenon than Rogan. It is a wholesale discomfort with the 'woke' culture that is often (fairly or unfairly) associated with the Democratic Party. You know, the culture that talks of oppressor vs. oppressed identity groups, and says that all men are guilty of benefiting from male privilege. I have long argued that this worldview is both unsound and harmful, in and of itself. Now, it seems that it is also at least partially responsible for giving us four more years of Trump.
The Democrats must distance themselves from wokeness, then. Other center-left parties across the West are also well advised to do so, especially since the movement of young men to the right (and sometimes the far-right) has been observed in multiple European countries too. To be fair, the Harris-Walz campaign did not contain anything woke, which shows that they have learned their lesson. However, what happened in this election showed that this was clearly not enough. With right-leaning media constantly portraying the Democrats as the woke party, they need to do much more to distance themselves from wokeness. I suggest that they take an active stand against the whole postmodern critical theory worldview. This would have the effect of acknowledging the root of the problem, and drawing a line in the sand. It would represent a much needed demonstration of willingness to pushback against the radical cultural-left, while not actually causing any harm to social justice in the real world. A win-win situation indeed. I actually think it would be a good idea for prominent figures and influencers on the center-left to run a serious critique of postmodern critical theory, to show that one can (and should) reject such theory while embracing old-school liberal values. It would also provide a much needed counter-argument to the New Right's groundless assertion that liberalism is responsible for the rise of wokeness.
Besides decisively cutting ties with wokeness, the Democrats and other center-left parties also need to actually stand for something. Here, I believe they should look to the lessons of 20 years ago. After all, it was back then that they started to substantially pick up the support of young people, and unlike today, that included young men and women alike. Looking back, some have even argued that 2005 was the beginning of the buildup of a liberal wave, even though it certainly didn't look like it back then. The liberal shift was essentially built on opposition to several aspects of Bush-43's presidency, namely the Iraq War, the erosion of civil liberties and free speech associated with the War on Terror, and the associated rise of the religious right, which was behind the swift enactment of gay marriage bans across America and the West, and also extreme policy proposals like requiring schools to teach 'intelligent design'. The important thing was that there was a consistent social libertarian case to be made against all these things, and it attracted the support of many young people back then. This was why opposition to the Iraq War, opposition to Bush-43 and support for Obama, and support for gay marriage became highly correlated. Looking back, it was actually social libertarianism that drew the majority of Millennials into the center-left, and created the famous 'Obama Coalition'. Later on, it would be the loss of social libertarianism, due to the mainstreaming of ideas from postmodern critical theory, that damaged this coalition more and more with time, ultimately leading to where we are now, i.e. substantial numbers of young people supporting the right in both America and Europe. Therefore, the solution clearly lies in decisively rejecting postmodern critical theory, i.e. what we commonly call 'woke', and re-embracing social libertarianism.
Now that Trump is poised to return to the White House, right-wing populism is rising across the West, and Christian fundamentalism is making a big comeback ('Christian Nationalism' is basically just this, I actually prefer the old term to be honest), there will definitely be plenty of opportunities to revive the social libertarian critique. Indeed, it is perhaps the only way we can defeat right-wing populism, and save liberalism going forward. Of course, one has to actually embrace social libertarianism to take advantage of this opportunity. A woke movement or party that don't even believe in free speech just can't credibly call out right-wing authoritarianism from a social libertarian angle. This is why it's time to break up with the 2010s, and re-embrace the 2000s.
From my other substack:
Three Things That Can Reunite Libertarians
Given that the usual attitude of libertarians is that 'only my version of libertarianism is real libertarianism', and that as the saying goes, if you have a room of libertarians there would be as many versions of libertarianism as there are people in the room, how can we hope to get different kinds of libertarians to come together at all? I believe the answer lies in finding, and emphasizing, our common ground. I can think of three areas where the vast majority of libertarians, if not all libertarians, can passionately agree on…
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).