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Mike Hind's avatar

For me, ‘Low Liberalism’ is a product of Remain Twitter. People with vaguely centre-left intuitions were so shocked and horrified that there turned out to be a nasty, brutish, floundering working class actually winning big votes in the UK and US that they decided to become a bit political.

Largely unsophisticated in the field, as you point out, they became shouty. In turn this incentivised unlikely elite figures like Jolyon Maugham, James O,Brien & Gary Lineker to build profiles as liberal warriors.

The first time anyone ever introduced themselves to me in the real world - adding that they were ‘cisgender’ - was at a party thrown for contributors by the New European newspaper.

Brexit and Trump jacked a lot of brains in the milquetoast centre, is my abiding feeling.

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Silas Burgundy's avatar

Excellent piece Tom, and gives a serious, considered label to what many of us have been (lazily) referring to as the "liberal metropolitan elite". Anyhow, I'm trying to square this idea with many of the other excellent ones I've come across recently eg. Matt Goodwin's "New Elite", Wesley Yang's "Successor Ideology" and Rob Henderson's "Luxury Beliefs". I think aspects of each fit neatly together!

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