Source: Quillette
by Brian Stewart
“Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield’s 1978 book The Spirit of Liberalism is a penetrating defence of liberal principles by a conservative political philosopher, but it also reproaches liberals’ failure to resist an onslaught from the radical Left. ‘From having been the aggressive doctrine of vigorous, spirited men, liberalism has become hardly more than a trembling in the presence of illiberalism,’ Mansfield writes. ‘Who today is called a liberal for strength and confidence in defense of liberty?’ More than a half-century later [sic], New York Times columnist Ezra Klein furnishes a good example of the spineless tendency Mansfield identified.” (02/24/26)
https://quillette.com/2026/02/24/ezra-kleins-feeble-liberalism-charlie-kirk-mahmoud-khalil/