I do want to defend liberalism... in theory and I want to talk about the ways that it is being threatened... today and... some of the consequences... - Francis Fukuyama

The United States has been in a long term decline, with its political institutions decaying. ...[T]he single source of that decline is ...the pervasive polarization ...within American society that has made the United States unable to meet some of the basic governance challenges that it has faced. The most recent example... has been the COVID pandemic... [W]earing a mask, instead of becoming a health measure that people take to protect themselves and their loved ones, becomes as political statement... [Y]ou don't wear a mask if you're a Trump supporter, and you do... if you're a Democrat. This is... not the way that... coherent nations... meet systemic challenges like a global pandemic.

The second failing of liberalism comes directly out of the fact that it attempts to lower the horizons of politics. Liberal societies do not want to tell you how to live. They do not want to define "the good life" because that is the source of conflict, but as a result liberal societies tend not to satisfy these very deep human cravings for community, because... there's something wrong with the basic liberal premise that we all start... as ed individuals. We're not self-interested individuals.

[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.