But a curious thing happens when you banish liberalism from your vocabulary. You rehabilitate illiberalism. As politics devolves into what President Barack Obama recently described as “a hostile competition between tribes and races and religions,” illiberalism seems to be spreading—and not only on the nationalist right, but also on the intersectional left.

The hopeful world of the very late 20th century—the world of nafta and an expanding nato; of the World Wide Web 1.0 and liberal interventionism; of the global spread of democracy under leaders such as Václav Havel and Nelson Mandela—now looks battered and delusive. The triumphalist mood of that bygone world was best distilled by Francis Fukuyama in his 1989 essay “The End of History,” in which he proclaimed liberal democracy the end state of human affairs.

Earlier this year, Fukuyama published an update confessing that his thesis had not aged well. Liberal democracy, he said, is not ascending. The world seems to be reverting to “a political spectrum organized increasingly around identity issues, many of which are defined more by culture than by economics.”

We got here through a series of harrowing experiences. The 9/11 attacks reminded us that religious violence is as modern as jet aircraft. The Iraq War discredited the governments that waged it and the elites who urged it, as I did. The financial crisis of 2008 called into question the stability of market economies; the lopsided recovery cast doubt on their fairness.

The euro currency crisis of 2010 revived European nationalism. China’s rise and Russia’s revanchism offered new hope to illiberal rulers worldwide. Mass immigration brought different ethnicities into closer contact, and sparked greater friction. New populist movements targeted the free press and independent judiciaries as enemies. Intellectuals claiming to speak for marginalized minorities rejected free speech and cultural exchange.

In this grim new world, former antagonists discovered much in common. Is Julian Assange right-wing or left-wing? Who knows? And does it matter? Is Brexit right-wing or left-wing? Is it right-wing or left-wing to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, nafta, and nato? To distrust vaccines? Across the democratic world, these positions unite the far edges of the political spectrum. Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, share more or less the same opinions about Ukraine and Syria. The hard right and hard left share darkly similar views about Jews.

The extremes agree at a deeper philosophical level as well. Both dismiss the ideal of neutral principles and impersonal processes as illusions, even lies. Both insist that law only masks power, that truth is subordinate to ideology, that politics is war.

But what of those who do not see the world this way?