Cyril Hédoin offers a startling historical mirror for our current moment: the liberal order we fear is collapsing isn't new, it nearly died twice before, and the man who helped rebuild it was a walking contradiction. By examining the intellectual life of Walter Lippmann through a new biography, Hédoin argues that the very "instability" of liberal thought is not a bug, but a feature that allowed it to survive totalitarianism and Cold War polarization. This is not a nostalgia trip; it is a strategic manual for navigating a crisis where the rules of the road are being rewritten by those who claim the road itself is the problem.
The Architecture of a Fragile Consensus
Hédoin begins by defining the "liberal consensus" not as a monolith, but as a complex, often messy agreement on rules. At the global level, this meant a rule-based order mediated by institutions like the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. Domestically, it balanced majoritarian democracy with constitutional safeguards. "Public officials' decisions are supposed to reflect the majoritarian views of citizens, but this relationship is constrained by and channeled through constitutional safeguards that limit the risk of tyranny from the few as well as from the majority," Hédoin writes. This framing is crucial because it immediately identifies the tension that defines our current era: the friction between popular will and institutional limits.
The essay posits that this consensus is now under severe stress. We see major powers rejecting international rules, and domestic populations increasingly viewing constitutional constraints as betrayals rather than protections. Hédoin notes that the contestation comes from both the marginalized, who feel stripped of control, and elites who claim the people have been betrayed. "The contestation comes simultaneously from parts of the population who consider that liberal society has deprived them of their ability to control their own destiny and made their lives worse, and from political and economic elites who claim the people have been betrayed by those they call the 'elite'," he observes. This dual-front war on liberalism is the defining characteristic of our time, and Hédoin suggests that looking back at Lippmann's career offers a roadmap for how such a system can endure.
The liberal consensus is compatible with a broad range of views. This diversity is at times a strength (it's an expression of freedom and favors social experiments), at times a weakness (it's a source of disagreement and eventually of conflict).
The Man Who Changed His Mind
The core of Hédoin's analysis rests on the intellectual biography of Walter Lippmann, a figure who embodied the "versatility" of the liberal tradition. Lippmann's views were never static; he moved from social liberalism to a brief flirtation with neoliberalism, and finally to a "quasi-Tocquevillian pessimistic and conservative liberalism." Hédoin argues that this evolution was not mere opportunism, but a reflection of the times. "Lippmann's views evolved over time, and not necessarily linearly," Hédoin writes, noting that his shifts were driven by the "uncertainty and trauma of a deadly war" and the need to find a new justification for liberal institutions when old ones failed.
Critics might argue that highlighting Lippmann's ideological shifts undermines the stability of the liberal project, suggesting it lacks a core truth. However, Hédoin counters that this flexibility is exactly what saved it. During the interwar period, when 19th-century laissez-faire liberalism was collapsing into totalitarianism, Lippmann and his peers had to reinvent the philosophy. In his book The Good Society, Lippmann insisted that liberalism was the only viable response to the modern division of labor. "In this book, Lippmann repeatedly characterized liberalism as 'the philosophy of the division of labor'," Hédoin notes. This reframing allowed liberals to accept state intervention and new economic realities without abandoning their core principles.
The essay highlights a particularly striking moment of unity amidst disagreement: the 1938 Colloque Lippmann in Paris. Despite deep ideological divides between figures like Hayek and Lippmann, they set aside their differences when faced with the existential threat of fascism. "With liberal society on the verge of being wiped out from the Earth's surface, liberal thinkers of the time were able to insist on what united them and put their disagreements aside," Hédoin writes. This historical precedent suggests that the current fragmentation of the liberal center is not necessarily fatal, provided the existential threat is clear enough to force coalition.
The Vietnam Crucible and the Rise of Illiberalism
The second major crisis Lippmann navigated was the polarization of the 1960s, driven largely by the Vietnam War. This period saw the rise of a new illiberal conservatism that targeted Lippmann as the embodiment of the "elite" consensus. Hédoin draws a sharp parallel between the anti-elite populism of the 1960s and today's political climate. "The Vietnam War largely contributed to the polarization of American society. Meanwhile, the rise of the New Right of William Buckley and others consecrated an early form of illiberal conservatism that is now fully on display," he argues.
Lippmann's response was not to double down on technocracy, but to retreat into a defense of constitutionalism and moral authority. His later work, The Public Philosophy, was a direct response to the threat of McCarthyism and the erosion of individual rights. "The book expresses more generally a conservative liberal view of democracy where moral authority is located in institutional traditions and culture," Hédoin explains. This shift mirrors the current struggle where the defense of democratic norms is increasingly framed as a conservative, rather than progressive, project.
Hédoin also draws a compelling comparison between Lippmann and the French sociologist Raymond Aron. Both men were "Cold War liberals" who understood the fragility of their societies and the dangers of relying too heavily on popular sovereignty. "Both developed a skeptical form of liberalism, aware of the difficult choices that politics involves and asserting the need for a political ethic of responsibility," Hédoin writes. The key difference, he notes, is that Lippmann was a mainstream voice in the US, while Aron was a lonely figure in France. This distinction matters: it suggests that the success of a liberal consensus depends not just on the ideas, but on the ability to build a broad, if uneasy, coalition.
Looking at the lives of liberal warriors like Lippmann and Aron is instructive. It shows that even when there was an established liberal consensus, it was never uncontested. It also points toward intellectual and political strategies.
The Unfinished Project
Hédoin concludes with a sobering reality check: the stakes today are higher than they were in the 20th century. Illiberalism is stronger, and the intellectual crisis has already metastasized into a political one. "Illiberalism is far stronger today than it has ever been since WWII. The intellectual crisis of liberalism has already turned into a political crisis," he warns. The question remains whether the liberal order can once again reinvent itself to survive.
The essay suggests that the seeds of the 21st-century consensus must be planted now, just as the Colloque Lippmann helped plant the seeds of the 20th. "Almost a hundred years ago, it was the combination of a strategic ideological program, started with the Colloque Lippmann, and a deadly world war that planted the seeds of the 20th-century liberal consensus. What about the 21st's?" Hédoin asks. This is the piece's most provocative challenge: it implies that the current chaos is not the end of the story, but the necessary, painful birth pangs of a new order. The vulnerability here is that history does not guarantee a happy ending; the 20th century required a world war to force unity. Whether the 21st century can find a way to unite without such catastrophic cost remains the open question.
Bottom Line
Hédoin's strongest argument is that the liberal consensus has always been defined by its internal contradictions and its ability to evolve, making the current crisis a familiar pattern rather than an unprecedented collapse. However, the piece's biggest vulnerability is its reliance on the assumption that existential threats will once again force disparate liberal factions to unite, a gamble that may not pay out in an era of fragmented media and deep polarization. The reader should watch for whether current political actors can construct a new "strategic ideological program" before the existing institutions crumble beyond repair.