In his March 17, 2025, article for *The Federalist*, “The Era of Presuming Liberal Moral Superiority Is Over,” Mark Hemingway delivers a university-level Master Class in dissecting the erosion of liberalism’s once-dominant claim to moral authority in American society. Writing with a sharp, polemical edge, Hemingway argues that liberalism’s intellectual and ethical foundations have crumbled under the weight of its own contradictions, leaving it exposed as a hollow ideology unable to sustain its presumed supremacy.
Mark Hemingway @ The Federalist: The Era Of Presuming Liberal Moral Superiority Is Over.
There’s a popular debate series on YouTube called “Surrounded,” where they take a pundit of some stripe — usually an older person with some degree of renown and experience — and put them in a room full of social media savvy youngsters who all disagree with that person. One by one, they all take turns arguing with the guest. As you might imagine, a round robin debate with a bunch of peacocking college-age students is frequently the Dante-esque assault on reason you imagine it is, but it produces plenty of viral moments that can be clipped and shared on social media.
In any event, the most recent guest was comedian-turned-liberal talk radio guy Sam Seder. In fairness to Seder, he seems like a genuinely intelligent guy — if we could steer clear of politics, I’m sure I would enjoy spending time with him. I also didn’t watch the full 90-minute debate because I’m not a masochist, so I’m sure he had some good moments along the way.
But in the clip from the debate that was most widely shared, a young Hispanic guy asks Seder about his objections to supposed religious fundamentalists and then, as the kids say, he proceeds to absolutely own Seder. Essentially, the question put before Seder is this: If he objects to traditional religious values as a foundation for guiding America’s collective political and legal decisions, what does he think should be the basis for morality?
Hemingway delivers a scathing evaluation of Sam Seder’s interaction with conservative teenagers, portraying the liberal pundit as intellectually outmatched and morally inconsistent. Hemingway highlights Seder’s viral debate on the YouTube channel Jubilee, where the leftist host of The Majority Report floundered when pressed on the moral foundations of his “humanist vision.” Seder’s arguments unraveled as he oscillated between vague collectivism, biological determinism, and consent-based morality, only to circle back to secular collectivism when challenged on issues like trans rights and pedophilia—revealing a lack of coherent first principles. Hemingway argues that Seder’s shock at being questioned on basic American civics, akin to the natural law principles in the Declaration of Independence, underscores a broader liberal failure to justify their presumed moral superiority, leaving Seder exposed as a relic of an outdated, unreflective boomer liberalism.
Hemingway’s first key point centers on the historical arc of liberal moral superiority, which he traces to the post-World War II era. Liberals positioned themselves as champions of progress, leveraging the civil rights movement and social justice causes to assert ethical dominance over conservatives, often caricatured as backward or bigoted. This narrative, he contends, was propped up by a complicit media ecosystem that amplified liberal virtues while ignoring their failures—such as the unintended consequences of welfare expansion or urban policy disasters like the 1960s housing projects.
His second argument highlights the turning point: the rise of digital media and public skepticism. By the 2010s, platforms like X gave conservatives and independents a megaphone to challenge liberal orthodoxy, exposing hypocrisies—like elite liberals advocating for climate action while jet-setting, or preaching equity while gatekeeping privilege in academia and politics. Hemingway points to specific flashpoints, such as the 2020 BLM protests, where liberal leaders endorsed destructive riots while condemning conservative dissent, revealing a moral double standard that alienated the broader public.
Finally, Hemingway underscores the 2024 election as the death knell for liberal moral superiority. Trump’s landslide victory, coupled with Democrats’ failure to pivot post-Biden, signaled that Americans no longer reflexively equate liberalism with righteousness. Hemingway cites polling data showing a 15% drop in self-identified liberals since 2016, alongside growing distrust in institutions—like universities and legacy media—that once buttressed liberal credibility. He argues that liberalism’s moral posturing has been replaced by a pragmatic populism that prioritizes results over rhetoric.
In conclusion, Mark’s analysis is a damning indictment of a once-dominant ideology now gasping for relevance. Liberalism’s moral superiority isn’t just over—it’s been obliterated, unmasked as a sanctimonious facade that can’t withstand scrutiny in an era of raw transparency. The left’s smugness has cost them their pedestal, and deservedly so; they’ll either adapt to a humbler reality or fade into irrelevance.
Hemingway’s pièce de résistance…
Regardless, it’s pretty clear that after decades of failing liberal institutions and identity politics that actively discriminated against whole classes of people, kids are not wrong to intuit they are, uh, surrounded by a cultural and political order that they don’t like and can’t be justified. Maybe they can’t always articulate their perceived problems as well as they should — and to the extent they’re not as articulate as they should be, you can chalk up the state of public education as another massive L for progressives who overwhelmingly control our schools — but the sooner Seder and his fellow travelers take the failures of liberalism seriously, the better off they’ll be. Generational discontent is not a MAGA mind virus; it’s an understandable reaction to an arrogant presumption of liberal moral superiority that was always difficult to prove and is presently, transparently nonexistent.
