WHAT IS “NEW” ABOUT OUR “LIBERALISM”?
Are we just a new generation taking up the banner of several hundred years of liberalism, both in the U.S. and globally? Is our school of liberalism new? Are we somehow different from other people who consider themselves liberal?
On January 24, 2024 the Los Angeles New Liberals launched the Freedom, Agency, and Abundance: Defining New Liberalism series. Through this series, we seek to gain a better understanding of what Liberalism means today, and what it means to practice a New Liberalism. The series will anchor around six in-person and steamed discussion formatted events and panels and will be open to the public.
While the Center for New Liberalism (CNL) and its members have the anchoring of a list of values and policy aims, that is not necessarily a narrative that answers why someone should affiliate with our organization compared to others; how our theory of change is unique; and, if we have shared policy aims with other organizations, how our approach or philosophical orientation is different.
To share how we define our Liberalism, we will be sharing various LA New Liberals thoughts here as well. We hope you can join us!
WHAT DOES LIBERALISM MEAN?
Tyler Laferriere-Holloway
Playa Vista
“Liberalism is as much a set of policy ideas as it is a disposition and culture. Free markets, individual rights, and political and economic agency — these are values that have set the U.S. in its wealth and liberty. In a time when populism and platitudes are so attractive, we have never needed a new liberal movement more urgently.”
Jason Bennett
Burbank
“In a world where far too many people value being right over winning, the pragmatism at the heart of Liberalism is more important than ever. We need to care more about solving problems, than that they were solved using our pet ideology”
Thomas Irwin
East Los Angeles
“I joined the New Liberal project in 2019, because I looked around and saw one theme that united both California's established political parties and emergining ideological organizations: there lack of interest in pursuing economic abundance in Los Angeles. It seemed evident to me as someone who worked in economic development in a local context that pursuing abundance was the most tractable way to improve the lives of working people in our city. I found that New Liberals were unique in their desire to center this vision of economic abundance in their thinking.”
Ian Parker
Fullerton
“I'm tired of bike lanes taking years to build. I'm tired of friends moving to Nevada as LA/OC deny new housing. I'm tired of street vendors fined and livelihoods ruined due to dumb rules. I'm tired of institutions that try to do everything for everyone, so don't accomplish anything at all. I want government to actually work, and that's why I'm a new liberal.”
Alix Ollivier
Mid-Wilshire
