it's generally accepted that the liberal bourgeois try to be socially liberal, but they eventually fail at this. The liberal bourgeois, (and by extension the liberal petit-bourgeois and labor aristocracy) often subscribe to identity politics, but ditch those politics once a minority, be that a racial or romantic minority, start to agitate beyond elections or police approved protest. This became apparent during the summer uprisings this year, when BLM bumper-sticker liberals began to call for incrementalism, instead of the direct action of the protests. This is nothing new of course, this has been happening since at least the 1950s.
Bourgeois liberals and their supporters also tend to change from social liberalism to social conservatism when they feel threatened by the collective action of various minorities, this is apparent from Twitter to the national stage, when liberal politicians do not hesitate to send in the troops to quash a protest or when twitter liberals devolve to dogwhistles. To me, it seems that the only thing social liberals consistently believe in is the accumulation of capital, especially through rent-seeking.
There is nuance in all things. No group is a homogenous monolith - the same is true here. The majority of liberals are weathervanes - they act effectively in the way you describe because of:
- factions within the liberal bourgeois complex
- material conditions
Sometimes the social liberal faction holds sway, when detrimental material conditions are apparent such as when large numbers are impoverished or during a crisis.
Sometimes it's the social conservative faction like in the aftermath of a terror attack, during geopolitical tensions or otherwise during the manufacturing of consent for war.
Sometimes it's the capitalist absolutist faction - when there are no pressing social issues of concern and business commences as usual in the eternal pursuit of accumulation.It all contributes ultimately to political pantomime - the reconfiguration of the liberal consciousness to suit any given scenario helps people feel 'stable, secure, sensible' in any given scenario, while the presence of multiple liberal factions emulates ideological plurality without actually presenting people with consequential choice.
It's the ideology of the status quo. Liberalism is capitalist realism, but they think that's a good thing.
The ones that really consider liberal philosophy wind up working their way to some form of socialism (like Rawls at the end of his life lol) as liberal philosophy really makes no sense otherwise.
Every lib friend of mine has faith in institutions, in checks and balances, has somehow still retained their belief that ultimately justice prevails in the end. I don't know how they've lived 25+ years and not had their worldview crumble other than that most of them are comfortable, mainly well off, and most importantly white or white adjacent so the problems of society mainly affect the "others" and the things that are a problem are seen more as a nuisance to be fixed or reformed in the future by electing someone to a position.
Like, I can get most of them to agree that capitalism is the problem but actually doing anything to help change it or against the status quo is seen as too extreme. I don't think their material conditions will ever get dire enough for them to conceptualize an alternative when most of them either have a decent job or monetary support from their family. This is where I've reached an empasse and found that my time organizing is better spent in non-white communities. Not trying to boil this down to a race issue but I've just had better luck with relating the failures of capitalism to minority communities than to poor white or liberal communities.
