The past couple of weeks have been particularly tumultuous, both for the United States, and for me personally. I don’t need to contribute to the already massive commentary on the first Biden-Trump debate, whether Biden should pull out of the race, and the attempted assassination of Donald Trump (my answers would be completely unremarkable: yes the debate indicated that Biden is too old; yes he should drop out of the race; and yes, it was very bad that someone resorted to violence to affect the outcome of the election). The net result of these developments has been to greatly increase the likelihood of Donald Trump returning to the White House next January.
What I want to do is talk instead about American Purpose, an online magazine we founded in the fall of 2020 to promote the values of classical liberalism. As I explained at the recent “Liberalism for the 21st Century” conference organized by Shikha Dalmia, my simple definition of liberalism is a doctrine that (1) asserts the equal dignity of all human beings and does not rank one group above others, and (2) protects this dignity through a rule of law, constitutional checks and balances, and the like. Liberalism in this sense is compatible with both expansive welfare states like those in Scandinavia, but also with those that seek to do less.
It is the liberal part of liberal democracy that has come under sharpest attack in recent years: in Hungary, where Viktor Orban has manipulated the media, taken control of the courts, and weakened checks on his power, to India, where Narendra Modi has done a lot to disenfranchise Muslims, who are not part of his Hindu nation. And it is directly at issue in the US, where Donald Trump has vowed to use state institutions to do after his personal political enemies, and has sought, in his quest to avoid accountability, to undermine trust in the American justice system as a whole.
We at American Purpose have been particularly focused Ukraine and countries on the Russian periphery, since they have come under the greatest threat in recent years. We have been dismayed to see an important part of the Republican Party, led by its recently announced Vice Presidential candidate J. D. Vance, essentially switch sides and back Russia against Ukraine. If Ukraine is forced into a settlement because of collapsing US support, we will not have peace; the entire post-1991 political settlement will begin to unravel, which was Putin’s aim all along.
At American Purpose would have liked to carry this torch forward as an independent magazine, but unfortunately after almost four years of trying under the leadership of Jeff Gedmin, we were unable to find a financial model that would allow us to exist as an independent journal. We are very excited therefore in the prospect of merging with Yascha Mounk’s Persuasion, since he and his magazine have sought to defend the same classical liberal principles. This merger will give both enterprise access to a combined subscription base, while allowing us to focus our attention on much the same issues as before. I will continue to supplement this Frankly Fukuyama blog with videos and podcasts from my Frankly Fukuyama YouTube channel, to which anyone can freely subscribe. You can see my interview with Yascha here.
Strangely enough, this “year of elections” has not been a terrible one for liberal democracy worldwide, with some worrying setbacks but also some surprising gains. It is the United States that is the outlier to this trend, and unfortunately, given our country’s importance globally, what happens in November will easily overwhelm positive outcomes elsewhere in the world. So stay tuned.