An Inspiration to Freethinkers

Some of us still subscribe to the view that we didn’t leave the Democratic Party; it left us. For such apostates and freethinkers, Fred Siegel was an inspiration and a role model (though I never asked him directly about his party affiliation). His writing was the product of careful observation by one of the best-read people in the world, who was nonetheless unafraid to advocate commonsense propositions: that Rudy Giuliani’s crackdown on crime was a prerequisite to a healthy city for all social classes, and that the liberalism once meant to uplift the poor had now evolved to hold them back—a crucial point of one of his last books, The Revolt Against the Masses. This book, it’s important to note, was not an op-ed-style screed about the Left. It deployed Fred’s deep understanding of American history to link current liberalism with the elitism of earlier generations. He was as upset with Herbert Croly as he was with Nancy Pelosi.