Illiberalism in 21st century America

Throughout the 20th century we had one political tribe (left) committed to social liberalism—free speech, due process, judging people as individuals and not part of racial groups—and another (right) committed to economic liberalism—free markets, private property, contracts. While it would have been preferable to have two tribes committed to both, having at least one tribe committed to both parts of liberalism meant that there was always a check/pushback against illiberalism of any form (the right would push back on economic illiberalism, the left against social illiberalism). The tragedy of 21st century American politics is that both tribes have surrendered their commitment to their half of liberalism. With the move to big government conservatism and economic nationalism, tribe right is now as fiscally illiberal as tribe left and with the move to cancel culture and wokism, tribe left is now as socially illiberal as tribe right. The productive institutional checks on liberalism appear to be gone and this doesn’t bode well for the future.