America’s Liberal Reckoning — Fareed Zakaria and Patrick Deneen: A Munk Debate at 92NY

Overview

Bestselling author, Washington Post columnist, and CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria joins renowned conservative scholar Patrick J. Deneen, author of Why Liberalism Failed, for a spirited debate about the promises and failures of American liberal democracy.

Join us as the Munk Debates, Toronto’s renowned forum for substantive and fearless public debate, come to New York City for the first time, with Rudyard Griffiths, longtime moderator of the series, presiding over the debate.

Motion: Be it Resolved, Liberalism has failed America.

Since its founding in 1776, America’s liberal principles have been credited with delivering unprecedented freedom and prosperity. Yet critics on the New Right argue that liberalism has failed not because it fell short of its promises, but because it fulfilled them too well. By liberating individuals from traditional social, cultural, economic, and political constraints, they argue, liberalism has produced a society that is increasingly isolated, unequal, and disconnected from the institutions that give life meaning. Its celebration of individual autonomy, free markets, and globalization has weakened families, communities, and national solidarity while empowering corporations, bureaucracies, and a professional elite increasingly detached from ordinary Americans. Saving America’s future, they argue, requires moving beyond liberalism.

Liberalism’s defenders maintain that its commitment to individual rights, free markets, free expression, and democratic institutions has been the foundation of America’s prosperity and freedom. Liberal institutions provide the strongest safeguards against both government overreach and the tyranny of the majority, while its emphasis on pluralism allows people with deeply different beliefs to live together peacefully. Rather than abandon liberalism, its champions argue, America should renew its commitment to the principles that have made it the world’s most prosperous and free society.

Arguing against the motion is CNN anchor, Washington Post columnist, international bestselling author, and steadfast defender of liberal democracy Fareed Zakaria. Opposing him is Notre Dame political philosopher Patrick Deneen, whose books Why Liberalism Failed and Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future have been widely cited and debated by figures across the “New Right” movement, and praised by then-Senator JD Vance.