Article snippet: In his newly released book, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, Lilla, a self-described “frustrated American liberal,” decries the implosion of the Democratic Party and liberalism itself, brought on by a growing disconnect from middle America and the inability to paint a compelling vision for the future. Lilla’s new work expands upon “The End of Identity Liberalism,” an essay he wrote shortly after last November’s Presidential election. In it, he urged fellow liberals to face up to their party’s share in responsibility for Trump’s victory, which Lilla attributed to the rise “identity liberalism.” Liberalism, Lilla contends in his book, is rightly considered by many “as a creed professed mainly by educated urban elites cut off from the rest of the country who see the issues of the day principally through the lens of identities.” The core of their error, Lilla suggests, is that Democrats have thrown themselves headlong into identity politics, focusing on what divides rather than what unites. As a result, many feel alienated from a party that once knew how to bring people together. “The majority of Americans have made it abundantly clear that they no longer respond to whatever larger message we have been conveying over the past decades,” he writes. Contra the opinion of many of his colleagues, Lilla says that the source of conservatives’ strength has been “not money, not false advertising, not fear-mongering, not racism” but rather a shared image f... Link to the full article to read more