ExcerptLiberalism is under attack, we are told by political, academic, and media establishments on both sides of the Atlantic. At the global level, it is often said, the rule-based liberal world order founded by the United States and its allies after World War II is giving way to great-power competition. Liberal democracy, we are told, is under assault from within as well from without, by authoritarians, including so-called authoritarian populists in Western democracies who come to power by winning free and (...) fair elections. And the liberal ideal of free speech and free debate, it is widely asserted, is crumbling thanks to the thought-policing of the woke left and the misinformation of the populist left. (shrink)