Liberalism has ruthlessly drawn down a reservoir of both material and moral resources that it cannot replenish. Its successes were always blank checks written against a future it trusted it could repair. Conservatism rightly observes that progressivism’s destination is a dead end, and progressivism rightly decries conservatism’s nostalgia for a time that cannot be restored. Conservatives and progressives alike have advanced liberalism’s project, and neither as constituted today can provide the new way forward that must be discerned outside our rutted path.
