Bangladesh, Nov. 13 -- Why has liberal democracy proved so helpless before the new authoritarianism? Why has liberalism failed to stem the tide of reaction now sweeping the world—here assuming the face of the MAGA movement and Trumpism? In a word: because its weakness is built in. Liberalism, in its moral, political, and economic forms, cannot realize the universality it proclaims. It conceives the self as a private owner of interests, the market as the form of reason, and justice as procedure rather than substance. The result is paralysis before the very forces it has unleashed. Authoritarianism is not liberalisms opposite but its mirror—the return of myth in a world stripped of meaning.

To escape this trap, we must recover ...