Donald Trump’s election as president startled many Americans. A number of observers commented that Trump’s campaign represented a set of illiberal values and policy positions far outside of the United States’ political traditions of individual rights, equality and democracy.
But in many ways, Trump represents a return to the historical norm. Such classical liberal values have often not predominated in the United States. In fact, they have always logically competed against — while being politically intertwined with — a set of commitments to hierarchies of race, nationality and religion, among others. Indeed for much of American history, these illiberal values held sway. CONT.
Philip A. Klinkner (Hamilton College) & Rogers M. Smith (Penn), The Monkey Cage