Liberalism is full of contradictions. We claim to want freedom, but must curtail freedom in order to secure that freedom itself. We claim to be anti-ideology and to be open to different viewpoints, but that apparent anti-ideological openness is an ideology in itself. Liberalism's hypocrisy is rife. Sophie Scott-Brown argues this hypocrisy has led to Trump. Trump owns his contradictions. Liberalism must get out of its internal, spiralling discourse, and spread its core values, to prevent another 'shock' from another 'populist' leader.

As morning broke in Manhattan on 7^th November 2024, and with it news that Donald Trump had won the presidential election, my phone began whimpering with messages from desolate leftish friends all expressing shock and horror. ‘I just can’t believe it’ read one, ‘it’s surreal’ said another, ‘it’s madness’ said a third. That was just on day one. In the days, weeks, months to come there will be endless dissection, part practical analysis, part personal therapy, anything to explain how on earth Mr Trump could once again be heading to the white house on an unequivocal wave of approval. And this despite every possible attempt by the opposition to derail him through legitimate (legal) means, seemingly bolstered by his willingness to commit every public howler going.

I’m not American and while that doesn’t mean I’m not going to be affected by all this, it does allow for a certain emotional distance. Dutifully, I reacted to the messages with ‘sad face’ emoji, but I can’t say I shared in anyone’s astonishment. Mr Trump himself is perfectly clear why he won, his final words to a rapt audience in Grand Rapids, Michigan, were an appeal to the ‘silent majority’ who were not only ‘back’ but very enthusiastic, more enthusiastic than Ms Kamala Harris’ people were for her. Tub thumping bombast, yes, but also slightly true, albeit not in the way he meant it.

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Why was this ‘silent majority’ so (quietly) enthusiastic for Trump but not for Harris? On the election day itself, I pre-recorded an episode of David Runciman’s ‘Past Present Future’ podcast series on the idea of the ‘silent majority’, a phrase most associated with Richard Nixon’s appeal for support from this elusive crowd over Vietnam in 1969 and consequently appropriated by Trump for his 2016 campaign. As David and I discussed, the ideas behind the phrase are neither wholly nor inherently right wing, the notion that the silence of most people most of the time can be interpreted as an articulate political statement, or a potential one, appears across the ideological spectrum, as does the notion that political authority can be endowed by ‘accurately’ expressing that silence.

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They are silent because they just reject the whole charade of political process itself

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Where things got tricky was that at the very point Nixon was invoking the silent majority in the late sixties, traditional relations between the people and politics were in a state of fragmentation. It was no longer clear that the left spoke for the working classes or that the right spoke for the continuity of an an organic folk culture. In post-war America, and indeed all other so-called liberal democratic states, the curious situation emerged that a political system based on representation and free elections was, at the same time, growing more and more detached from any legitimising popular relationship.

In his book In the Shadow of Silent Majorities (1983) Jean Baudrillard argued that the silent majority are no longer silent for any of the traditional reasons (namely they approve/give consent or that they are oppressed by power and awaiting an interlocutor to liberate them). They are silent because they just reject the whole charade of political process itself. They refuse to be made into ‘citizens’, to care about what they are told to care about and to express themselves in the ways deemed appropriate for them to do so.

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Liberalism is a state of perpetual hypocrisy which, for many of us is distasteful, even repulsive

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Yet, in another vein, this dislocation of spheres—public and private, professional politics and personal politics—has long been considered a defining feature of liberalism and its saving grace. In part, this is because liberalism is such an intrinsically ironical philosophy, everything about it is ridden with contradictions. Liberals advocate for individual freedom but must curb that freedom to allow that freedom. They must refuse ideology to accommodate different viewpoints but uphold an ideology of anti-ideology to survive as a political identity that defends against ideology.

In short, you could say that liberalism is a state of perpetual hypocrisy which, for many of us is distasteful, even repulsive but not for Judith Shklar. In her book Ordinary Vices (1984) Shklar famously turned this upside down by saying it was the necessary evil keeping liberal democracy alive, a virtuous vice if you will. By organising ourselves around a public discourse and structure of certain values and behaviours, even when privately we might rail against them, we are creating conditions for co-existence. These may be uneasy or superficial, but they are infinitely preferable to a wild west style open grab for power where ‘might’ (or at least ‘mouth’) prevails.

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Nevertheless, Trump’s (semi) silent majority begs the question is this strategy working? In fact, it has worked too well resulting in the ultimate and least forgivable hypocrisy: the hypocrites that do not know they are hypocrites. An amnesia has descended across liberal political classes who forget that deliberative argument and the rule of law were only ever supposed to be tools—not ends—that aided and compensated for the fact our feelings rarely meet the demands of a pluralist society.  But now the tail is wagging the dog, and the rules rule the roost. This is why my friends find Trump so offensive. He doesn’t bother to conceal his hypocrisies and even shows contempt to their contrivances. For example, when, in suburban Philadelphia, he put music on and swayed for half an hour instead of answering questions as he should have done, the liberal minded snorted in disgust, but many other, it seems, got the point.

What’s the answer? Trump illustrates the problem, but he does not solve it. Our modern lives are too complex, too fringed with ubiquitous dangers—wars, pandemics, climate emergency—to make his heady cocktail of force, fancy, and flattery an enduring solution. So, back to liberalism and its messy doubleness, but not before accepting the truth liberals have invested far more energy in polishing their tools than in equipping anyone else with them. If we want to stop getting ‘shocked’ every time a ‘populist’ leader has a victory, we need to democratise democracy and let more people have a meaningful stake in directing our collective life.