Keen On

Call it the Zakaria paradox. We live in revolutionary times, the CNN host and Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria explains, and yet it’s the reactionary MAGA politics of resentment that is currently ascendant. It’s this paradox that laces Zakaria’s 2024 book, Age of Revolutions (just out in paperback), a narrative that traces the history of liberalism from the 17th century revolutionary Dutch Republic to today’s reactionary age of populist strongmen. The Trump playbook is clear, Zakaria notes: “the Chinese Are Taking Your Factories, the Mexicans Are Taking Your Jobs, the Muslims Are Trying to Kill You.” So how should progressive liberals, in our age of TikTok and OpenAI, respond with a more optimistic, forward thinking message about our revolutionary times? What is Fareed Zakaria’s escape from the Zakaria Paradox?1. Trump’s Genius Was Sensing the New Republican Base Trump was the only candidate in 2016 who abandoned the Reagan formula (free trade, balanced budgets, interventionist foreign policy) and rec