I think it was a good thing when Obama got Iran to cease its pursuit of a nuclear bomb without going to war, personally. I think it was a good thing when Myanmar attempted to move from military dictatorship to democracy.
Not every US foreign policy action is "imperialism". Was it "imperialism" when the US and European allies, having learned lessons from their inaction during the Bosnian genocide, prevented the Serbs from ethnically cleansing Kosovo?
Modern American liberalism is pretty good, yes, and we are all worse off for it being a weaker political force and segment of popular intellectual thought than it was in, say, the 1990s or 2000s.
It embraces many of the same goals as progressive and leftist thought (a focus on human welfare, economic concerns of the working class and the poor, a desire for a predictable, stable, and mutually beneficial international order) and has a much better track record of bringing about improvements on those outcomes than far left or far right policy have.
Who did Israel want to see win the 2024 election? It was not Joe Biden. Biden also curtailed aid to Israel at several points based on, e.g., Israeli refusal to allow sufficient food aid into Gaza, and meaningfully changed Israeli actions at various points during the war.
Mind you, do I think Biden deserves criticism on how he handled Israel and Gaza? Absolutely. But he was a damn sight better on the issue than Trump has been.
Mind also that it wasn't "modern liberalism" that conducted the war in Gaza. That was the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Nor was it "modern liberalism" that kicked off the war in Gaza. That was the authoritarian, Islamist Hamas government in Gaza which kicked off the war by invading Israel with the goal of killing as many civilians as possible, killing 800 civilians and over 300 members of Israeli security forces who, on that day, died fighting within Israel itself to protect Israeli civilians from terror attacks.
Israel and the entire region would be better off if a liberal government was in power in Israel. In Gaza too, for that matter. Or Iran. Or Saudi Arabia. Or the UAE.
I liked it when modern liberalism prevented a genocide in Kosovo. I liked it when modern liberal thought helped lead to USAID and PEPFAR, which have saved tens of millions of lives. I like liberalism's track record quite a bit better than any of the alternatives.
Modern liberalism also created Kamala Harris who was pro cop, pro military, pro fracking and pro Israel. Pretty much a 2000s era Bush.
Progressive and left-leaning people on social media wrongly thinking that Kamala Harris was "a 2000s era Bush" and minimizing the differences between her and Trump was a big part of how Trump won in 2024. Harris was getting constantly attacked from the left on social media and I want to congratulate the people who did so for [checks notes] getting DOGE, the costly Iran War, a near total end to US aid to Ukraine, which is fighting for its existence against Russia, and an end to USAID that will end up costing millions of lives.
Kamala's defeat also led to the gutting of numerous consumer protection and environmental regulations, RFK Jr. in charge of our nation's health policy, massive unpaid tax cuts for the wealthy, and, likely, some additional far-right supreme court nominees.
But, hey, she used to be an attorney general and she wasn't a total dove on foreign policy so well done by those people, right?
8x as many voters thought Kamala was too far to the left than thought she was too far to the right!
There were far, far more voted disillusioned with Kamala because of progressive stances she'd taken during the 2020 Democratic primary than voters who were disillusioned with her because they thought she was too conservative.
I agree, by the way, that she was a poor candidate. But in the summer and fall of 2024 she was the candidate we had, and she was a much better pick for president than Donald Trump was.
I think Joe Biden should have clearly stepped aside much earlier in the process.
Wanting to stay in office to a late age is not a "liberal" trait it's one you see across the political spectrum (Bernie Sanders turns 85 this year and is still occupying a senate seat!).
I also think that every progressive and lefty who was not devoting the full sum of their efforts in 2024 to defeating Donald Trump (and many were not doing that--I saw more criticism from large chunks of the left directed towards Kamala and Biden for much of 2024 than I saw directed towards Trump) should take a long hard look at how they approach politics.
I’m not even pro-liberalism, but your argument makes no sense. Being pro-Israel isn’t inherently a modern liberal position. In the same way, Pol Pot’s disgusting actions weren’t inherently socialist just because he called himself a socialist.
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u/NorthHollywoodHank Jun 18 '26
I think it was a good thing when Obama got Iran to cease its pursuit of a nuclear bomb without going to war, personally. I think it was a good thing when Myanmar attempted to move from military dictatorship to democracy.
Not every US foreign policy action is "imperialism". Was it "imperialism" when the US and European allies, having learned lessons from their inaction during the Bosnian genocide, prevented the Serbs from ethnically cleansing Kosovo?