TikTok as the New Public Square

Call it the Zakaria paradox. We live in revolutionary times, the CNN host and Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria explains, and yet it’s the reactionary MAGA politics of resentment that is currently ascendant. It’s this paradox that laces Zakaria’s 2024 book, Age of Revolutions (just out in paperback), a narrative that traces the history of liberalism from the 17th century revolutionary Dutch Republic to today’s reactionary age of populist strongmen. The Trump playbook is clear, Zakaria notes: “the Chinese Are Taking Your Factories, the Mexicans Are Taking Your Jobs, the Muslims Are Trying to Kill You.” So how should progressive liberals, in our age of TikTok and OpenAI, respond with a more optimistic, forward thinking message about our revolutionary times? What is Fareed Zakaria’s escape from the Zakaria Paradox?

1. Trump’s Genius Was Sensing the New Republican Base Trump was the only candidate in 2016 who abandoned the Reagan formula (free trade, balanced budgets, interventionist foreign policy) and recognized that the Republican base had become white working class voters deeply resentful of globalization, immigration, and cultural change.

2. We’re Living Through a Long Backlash, Not a Moment Zakaria argues that massive technological and economic transformations—from industrialization to today’s AI revolution—always trigger prolonged cultural and political backlashes. Trump’s re-election confirms we’re in this for decades, not years.

3. The Dutch Revolution Invented Modern Individualism Painters like Vermeer and Rembrandt revolutionized Western art by depicting ordinary people and daily life rather than religious subjects—marking the birth of individualism that defines modern liberalism. To understand revolution, look at art, not just politics.

4. TikTok Is Enlightenment Liberalism on Steroids Our fragmented, personalized media landscape represents the logical conclusion of individual autonomy and choice. But this creates a “hole in the heart”—people miss the certainty of faith, tradition, and community that pre-modern life provided.

5. Liberalism’s Biggest Threat Comes From Both Sides Zakaria warns that illiberalism threatens from the reactionary right (Deneen-style restrictions on women’s rights, immigration) AND from the progressive left (DEI ideology, extreme socialism). True liberals must hold the center and resist sacrificing liberal values to achieve political goals.

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