The argument · from the archive

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What happens to liberals when they win? A theory of why the people defending liberal democracy now get called conservatives - and why the label flipped while the values stood still.

Crossbencher · 15 July 2026

Every movement that wins eventually trips over the one thing its founders never planned for: winning.

The liberals of the last century wanted things that were genuinely dangerous to want. Free expression against censors with real power to jail you. Equality before the law against an openly ranked society. Women's rights, gay rights, secular government - each a frontier, each taken from institutions that fought back hard. To hold those positions then was to be the radical in the room.

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