Matthew Schmitz

Donald Trump’s victory marks the death of liberalism

On election day, I left my apartment on the east side of Manhattan, walked one block to my polling station, and got in line. A reporter from the neighbourhood paper was asking people who they were voting for and why. The woman ahead of me said she was voting for Clinton, both to stop Trump and because she wanted to see a woman finally break the glass ceiling. The little boy strapped to her chest kept waving at me over her shoulder. I waved back.  Well, instead of breaking a glass ceiling, we’ll be building a wall.

The difference is telling. In her concession speech, Clinton said her goal had been ‘breaking down all the barriers that hold any American back from achieving their dreams. This is the dream of liberalism, which seeks freedom from any social or economic constraint. Elites like Clinton feel confident that they can navigate a deregulated society in which class, gender, and race are all fluid. They support deregulated markets as well, confident that free trade and open borders will serve their own interests in the near term and the whole country’s in the longer term. 

The rest of America isn’t so sure. The people who put Trump into office want security and solidarity, not creative destruction. They look askance at the Trans-Pacific Partnership and transgender rights. They do not want broken barriers and shattered ceilings, they want four walls of adobe slats and a roof over their heads. 

In mild and radical ways, people across the world are turning away from a liberal belief in open borders, open markets, and the ability of formal procedures to ward off debate over fundamental questions. We can see this in the choice of British citizens to vote for Brexit; in the fact that France’s leading presidential candidate is Marine Le Pen. In Austria, the anti-immigrant Freedom Party has entered the run-off for the presidential race.

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