The idea of universal human dignity ultimately comes out of Christianity... the view that all human beings are equal in the sight of God because they… - Francis Fukuyama

The practical reason has to do with that original purpose of liberalism, which was to lower the temperature of politics by taking final ends off the table, and allowing societies to govern themselves when they face religious or national diversity... [T]hat remains one of its biggest selling points. In India, the republic that was created by Gandhi and Nehru was a liberal republic. They did not define themselves in religious terms. They knew that they had to deal with the incredible diversity, not just religious but in terms of cast, , language, many other dimensions... [A] liberal republic was... the only way of accommodating that diversity. What prime minister Modi is seeking to do... is to shift that national identity to one based on Hindu nationalism, which then excludes the up to 200 million Muslims that live in contemporary India, as well as... Parsis, Christians, other people... When he was the chief minister [2001-20014] in Gujarat this led to communal riots, and I'm afraid that India is moving toward that kind of communal violence once again today. ...So that's the pragmatic reason.

[W]hile Trump is not going to be president, Trumpism is going to survive. ...[T]he Democrats need to look very very carefully at those election results because ...the Republicans did well not necessarily because people love what they represent, but because they don't like what the Democrats represent... [U]nless they sort out what that is, they are going to continue to lose elections.

[T]he election... on November 3 ... illustrates a lot of these clashing forces. ...[T]hat election was the most important political fight ...in my lifetime. It's important not just for the United States but... for the rest of the world, given the role that the United States has historically played in maintaining that broader liberal international order.