Liberalism is undergoing a reckoning: the primary cleavage is no longer moderate Republican vs. Democrat but liberal vs. illiberal, with much deeper historical roots than the 1990s-2000s party divide; this cleavage likely persists indefinitely rather than being resolved or suppressed into disappearance, requiring ongoing vigilance without hopes for final victory.

The 1920s Klan represented early American 'America First' sentiment, and the demand for illiberal politics emerges from similar anxieties, belonging concerns, and fears about multiculturalism and power structure change—the supply-side politics only matter if they match voter demand, which historians often overlook by focusing on what politicians offer rather than what voters want.

Bill Clinton's supporters argue he took crime, immigration, and welfare off the table as Democratic weaknesses, allowing Democrats to return to national power—a set of compromises that now appear terrible but were strategically necessary to prevent these issues from enabling illiberal victories.

Political scientist Larry Bartels describes the populist right as a reservoir, not a wave, that's always there to tap into, which helps explain why national figures who can lead in America must embody some contradictions to absorb different currents.