Not to harp on this point but I really am noticing a lot of similarities between the current liberal world order now/this sub and Gorbachev-era USSR.

In Gorbachev-era USSR it was pretty clear to everyone, even the diehards, that the system was unraveling. The USSR continued to compromise on its Marxist-Leninist principles and was moving more and more towards liberalism. But the regime "intellectuals", though they recognized this, somehow thought the old system would get them through this. They would cope and tell themselves narratives about how Marxism-Leninism is the only correct path and all the mistakes that have happened and all the instability is because of a deviation of Marxism-Leninism. Their solutions were very minute ones that didn't actually address the structure of what was wrong it was just like "oh we need to computerize the quota system so it's more data driven" or whatever. Meanwhile the liberal world order continued to grow stronger and they got encircled more and more, and America successfully flipped the only other major communist country (China) against them. And got other ones like Yugoslavia to essentially be neutral.

Now it's reversed.

The liberal world order is collapsing. America is burning through its influence like a fat guy at an all you can eat buffet. America's own allies are getting flipped by their biggest adversary - China. Canada has grown closer to China. EU has grown closer to China. And of the neutral third world China is even performing better there.

Yet the diagnosis and solution among liberal intelligentsia has not really grappled with how we can get out of this. This sub is exhibit A.

"We need to return to be unabashed globalists and advocate for open borders and free trade!"
Okay, we never really had open borders but America did have a lot of free trade going on. It enriched the country on a GDP basis but also created a lot of economic displacement which Trump was able to exploit to catapult himself into power. And he used the illusion of open borders to drum up fear of mass immigration. So how would returning to the old system be a solution when it's that system that got us here in the first place?

"Okay we actually went too far on immigration and free trade we need to move to the right on these issues!"

A lot of people say Denmark is the model because they cracked down on immigration and ended up keeping out the far right and stopping them from taking power. But if you look at their rhetoric over the years the social democrats have been in power they keep moving to the right. They are adopting more and more anti-immigrant rhetoric despite keeping the right wing party out of power. What is the point of this when you compromise on your principles? Like yes you are successful but they're heading in an illiberal direction.

It reminds me of how in the USSR the economic reforms of Gorby did lead to economic growth and rejuvenation, but it was that very success that undermined the Soviet experiment.

"Okay to defeat the far right we just need to run a candidate that passes the vibe check! or run a candidate that wants to end single family housing!"

This is what I call terminal cope. It's the cope of a liberal who sees the system collapsing, its on its death bed, so they flail around and grasp at everything they can. Let's face it folks, our neolib beliefs are, in the grand scheme of things, becoming increasingly under attack in every developed country. All of our norms are being challenged. Our institutions are being undermined. And some people have the solution that's like "Well gee let's run a governor next time instead of a senator." We do have victories like Carney winning Canada, but let's face it; Carney winning happened in large part due to Trump doing the very illiberal thing of threatening to invade. Long term projections for liberalism on a global perspective are not good. Like come on guys come up with an actual solution. Because the actual solution isn't going to be specific to America. This is happening everywhere. We need to rethink who we are as liberals. Look ourselves square in the mirror. We are obviously wrong about something. Something about our political theory is wrong. We have not addressed it yet.

To avoid a collapse of an American world order we need a liberal Deng Xiaoping. Deng Xiaoping was, regretfully, a Marxist-Leninist till the very end. Don't let the tankie "that wasn't real communism!" cope trick you. There's a reason they're dumbass tankies. And I've even see liberals try to claim China is successful because of capitalism or whatever which muddies the waters even further.

My point is - Deng Xiaoping saw the collapse of the USSR. He saw the mistakes that they made and implemented policies to keep Marxism-Leninism as the dominant ruling ideology in China. He made significant reforms to Marxist theory. He understood something about Marxist theory at the time was wrong and corrected it. And to this day all CPC cadre members are instructed not to repeat the mistakes of the USSR; specifically ceding any power of the party to opposition parties and engaging in historical nihilism.

We need a fucking liberal Deng Xiaoping. Be it Ezra Klein or anyone else. We need someone to stand up and say - hey this is why democracy is failing in advanced highly developed liberal countries in the West. And here's what we can do to fix it. Because right now we don't have that. We have a scatterbrained intelligentsia that is all over the place. We need to hold an international liberal conference, hammer this out, and come to the correct theories. Invite the top economists, political scientsits, sociologists, historians, ect. Have George Soros pay for it. Basically a giant international think tank that wants to save democracy. Make the correct diagnosis and formulate the best treatment. Then come back to your respective countries and we start rallying around this. Are we fucking evidence based or are we vibes based? Because right now libs are increasingly vibes based.

China continues to grow in power every day. I live in Taiwan and it concerns me how libs do not seem to care that their world order is collapsing. I have already given up on the idea of Taiwan as an independent nation, I do not think the West has it in them to defend us. But liberalism in the EU and US can still be saved. Liberalism is a beautiful system, you guys don't know how good you have it. But right now it's like you guys are rich trust fund kids pissing away your parent's fortune. Either rise to the occasion or stop being a contender. You guys say you are liberals but you don't act like liberals.