Building the Future Liberal Coalition | TaraElla Report Lab

Why Dave Rubin is Wrong, and Liberals Don't Need to Move Right

Welcome back to TaraElla Report Lab. Today, I want to talk about where I want to see liberalism go in its future development, and how those of us who believe in free speech, free debate and a healthy marketplace of ideas can advance these values in our current context. As I said before, there is still a lot of work to do if we want to make our Western democracies truly liberal, and the new media age that is just beginning provides both opportunities and challenges. Therefore, having the correct strategy to navigate this landscape is important.

In recent years, there has been a lot of debate about whether 'the Left' or 'the Right' is a more suitable ally for liberals. Traditionally, liberalism has been seen as a force of the Left, broadly speaking. In the past century, liberals have acted to improve the social safety net, bring about civil rights reforms, and protest the Vietnam and Iraq Wars, as part of the 'Left' political coalition, and these achievements are very cherished by many of us. However, in the past decade, some factions of the Left have turned against core pillars of liberalism like free speech, anti-identitarian universalism and scientific objectivity, which has caused many liberals to repeatedly doubt our place and our future in the 'Left' coalition.

In light of our increasing tension with some parts of the Left, some people on the Right have repeatedly tried to woo us to move into the Right, with some success. Dave Rubin of the Rubin Report, who famously made the 'Why I Left the Left' video, has in recent years become much more comfortable identifying himself as part of the Right, and he apparently thinks we should all do the same. Commenting on Bill Maher's increasing frustration with the Left, Rubin recently said that old school JFK-style liberals should now consider themselves the moderate part of the conservative movement, and they need to be willing to stop voting for Democrats and start voting for conservative Republicans like Ted Cruz and Glenn Youngkin.

From what I see, Rubin appears to be advocating that we take a side, the 'Right' side of politics, and stick to it consistently, including at the ballot box. Rubin certainly looks like he has found a comfortable home on the Right. The problem is that, people like Rubin don't seem to be critical enough of the illiberal elements within the Right, even as they are clearly gaining ground. Seeing this development, I certainly don't share Rubin's optimism about the Right as a good home for liberals going into the future. Besides, politics is not just about free speech and taking a stand against critical theory. It is also about the climate, health care, economic policy, and many other things. And I doubt many liberals (including myself) can ever be comfortable with the conservative stance on these matters. While we can find common ground with conservatives and work together on free speech and taking a stand against critical theory, there's no reason why we should have to give up our values and beliefs in other areas of policy that are just as important.

I agree that liberals should probably stop thinking of ourselves as being on 'the Left' on every issue automatically. But that doesn't mean we should all move to the Right. Instead, what I advocate for is a holistic liberal movement that transcends party lines and ideological factions. A holistic liberalism needs to be broad enough to respond to, and potentially be changed in the process, by critics on both sides, so sticking to one side or another isn't the correct choice. Instead, the future coalition of liberalism should be broad enough to allow both left-leaning and right-leaning people to thrive within it, bringing their diverse perspectives to the table, challenging us to think harder about how to expand the scope of freedom and how to make the marketplace of ideas better all the time. This necessarily means there won't be unity at the ballot box. A free-thinking community of liberals shouldn't expect or demand this kind of conformity anyway. A genuinely liberal movement can't be committed to serving a political faction or party, or it will cease to be genuinely liberal.

Therefore, I think the future coalition of liberalism should not be concerned about agreement on matters of electoral politics at all. Individual liberals should be encouraged to make their own decisions at the ballot box, we should respect each other's free conscience, and that should be it. Instead, there are many other matters that require urgent attention, where we will be able to advance the core values of liberalism far better than by engaging in electoral politics. Examples include developing solutions to cure the ills of social media, demanding changes to how mainstream media operates, fixing the imbalance of perspectives in certain parts of academia, and so on. Engaging with these issues is difficult but necessary. A new liberal coalition that focuses on these issues will need to be comfortable about the fact that we might have different views when it comes to various social and economic matters, and we might support different political parties or vote differently from each other as a result. But it will be built on the common ground of being committed to free speech, free debate, and wanting to make the marketplace of ideas freer and fairer. And that's already plenty of common ground to work on.