Not sure why you were previously downvoted - I wholeheartedly agree. Perhaps I think people are putting this into a "blame" framework. E.g. I've seen basically

Not sure why you were previously downvoted - I wholeheartedly agree. Perhaps I think people are putting this into a "blame" framework. E.g. I've seen basically this argument online "I don't see how you can blame the Democrats for this, as Trump is a million times worse, especially of everything he accuses the Democrats of doing." While I agree with that sentiment, "blame" is the wrong way to look at this. At the end of the day, it's self-evident that something caused the rise of Trump and other autocrats and a breakdown of the post WWII liberal order, and it behooves us all to investigate why that happened. FWIW, I thought this recent article in NYT about liberals in Denmark (who, unlike many liberals elsewhere, take a hard stance against unfettered and illegal immigration) was excellent and offers some clues: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/magazine/denmark-immigration-policy-progressives.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/magazine/denmark-immigrat.... This paragraph I think summarizes "what went wrong" with leftist policies in many areas: > Leftist politics depend on collective solutions in which voters feel part of a shared community or nation, she explained. Otherwise, they will not accept the high taxes that pay for a strong welfare state. “Being a traditional Social Democratic thinker means you cannot allow everyone who wants to join your society to come,” Frederiksen says. Otherwise, “it’s impossible to have a sustainable society, especially if you are a welfare society, as we are.” High levels of immigration can undermine this cohesion, she says, while imposing burdens on the working class that more affluent voters largely escape, such as strained benefit programs, crowded schools and increased competition for housing and blue-collar jobs. Working-class families know this from experience. Affluent leftists pretend otherwise and then lecture less privileged voters about their supposed intolerance.