--- title: "2 New deal Quotes By Mark Lilla" description: "2 New deal quotes by Mark Lilla. Plus more from Mark Lilla and more New deal sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d80/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-f_1248046.jpg" --- > [“The most important lesson is this: that for two generations America has been without a political vision of its destiny. There is no conservative one; there is no liberal one. There are just two tired individualistic ideologies intrinsically incapable of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-for-two-generations-america/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d80/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-f_1248046.jpg) > [“There can be no liberal politics without a sense of we—of what we are as citizens and what we owe each other. If liberals hope ever to recapture America’s imagination and become a dominant force across the country, it will…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/there-can-be-no-liberal-politics-without-a-sense-of-we-of-what-we-are/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2ed/mark-lilla-13300_collateral-damage_there-can-be-no-liberal-politics-without_1670953.jpg) ## Other authors on New deal - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b013/author-jill-stein-49626.jpg) Jill Stein 9 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/new-deal/jill-stein/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b002/author-heather-cox-richardson-6324.jpg) Heather Cox Richardson 7 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/new-deal/heather-cox-richardson/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b018/author-noam-chomsky-71799.jpg) Noam Chomsky 6 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/new-deal/noam-chomsky/) ## More by Mark Lilla > [“Democratic politics is about persuasion, not self-expression. I’m here, I’m queer will never provoke more than a pat on the head or a roll…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/democratic-politics-is-about-persuasion-not-self-expression-i-m-here/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The other component was to build cadres through political education. Republicans sought out wealthy donors to set up foundations and think tanks as safe…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-other-component-was-to-build-cadres-through-political-education/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The romantic wants to create a world where he or she will possess a fully integrated, unconflicted identity—where the answers to the questions Who…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-romantic-wants-to-create-a-world-where-he-or-she-will-possess-a/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“How we react to the presidency of Donald Trump will be the first test of our preparedness. His administration in its infancy is already…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/how-we-react-to-the-presidency-of-donald-trump-will-be-the-first-test/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The universities of our time instead cultivate students so obsessed with their personal identities and campus pseudo-politics that they have much less interest in,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-universities-of-our-time-instead-cultivate-students-so-obsessed/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The Republicans have successfully persuaded much of the public that they are the party of Joe Sixpack and Democrats are the party of Jessica…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-republicans-have-successfully-persuaded-much-of-the-public-that/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Mary McCarthy, though, had it wrong when she wrote that “Madame Bovary is Don Quixote in skirts.” Emma’s suffering is Platonic: she searches, in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/mary-mccarthy-though-had-it-wrong-when-she-wrote-that-madame-bovary/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“You might have thought that, faced with a novel anti-political picture of the nation, liberals would have countered with an imaginative, hopeful vision of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/you-might-have-thought-that-faced-with-a-novel-anti-political-picture/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The Stillborn God is not a fairy tale. It is a book about the fragility of our world, the world created by the intellectual…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-stillborn-god-is-not-a-fairy-tale-it-is-a-book-about-the/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“The forces at work in healthy party politics are centripetal; they encourage factions and interests to come together to work out common goals and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-forces-at-work-in-healthy-party-politics-are-centripetal-they/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Martin Luther King Jr. was the greatest movement leader in American history. But, as Hillary Clinton once correctly pointed out, his efforts would have…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/martin-luther-king-jr-was-the-greatest-movement-leader-in-american/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Like any other political doctrine, liberalism makes assumptions about things human and divine, and these assumptions are, and ought to remain, open to disinterested…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/like-any-other-political-doctrine-liberalism-makes-assumptions-about/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Better the self-torture of a godless Protestant conscience than the fantasies of a modern Prometheus.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/better-the-self-torture-of-a-godless-protestant-conscience-than-the/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [“Identity is not the future of the left. It is not a force hostile to neoliberalism. Identity is Reaganism for lefties.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/identity-is-not-the-future-of-the-left-it-is-not-a-force-hostile-to/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) > [Whoever takes it upon himself to write an honest intellectual history of twentieth-century Europe will need a strong stomach. But he will need something…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/whoever-takes-it-upon-himself-to-write-an-honest-intellectual-history/) [Mark Lilla](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mark-lilla/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/new-deal/mark-lilla/#itemlist", "name": "2 New deal Quotes By Mark Lilla", "numberOfItems": 2, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The most important lesson is this: that for two generations America has been without a political vision of its destiny. There is no conservative one; there is no liberal one. There are just two tired individualistic ideologies intrinsically incapable of discerning the common good and drawing the country together to secure it under present circumstances. We are governed by parties that no longer know what they want in a large sense, only what they don’t want in a small sense. Republicans don’t want the programs and reforms that are the legacy of the New Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society. Democrats don’t want Republicans to cut them. But what are the parties’ ultimate aims, whatever the size and shape of government? What are they fundamentally after? What sort of image of the future governs their actions? They seem no longer to know. So the public can hardly be expected to. We find ourselves in a post-vision America.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Mark Lilla" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-for-two-generations-america/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d80/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-f_1248046.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d80/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-f_1248046.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d80/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-f_1248046.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“The most important lesson is this: that for two generations America has been without a political vision of…” — Mark Lilla", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“There can be no liberal politics without a sense of we—of what we are as citizens and what we owe each other. If liberals hope ever to recapture America’s imagination and become a dominant force across the country, it will not be enough to beat the Republicans at flattering the vanity of the mythical Joe Sixpack. They must offer a vision of our common destiny based on one thing that all Americans, of every background, actually share. And that is citizenship. We must relearn how to speak to citizens as citizens and to frame our appeals—including ones to benefit particular groups—in terms of principles that everyone can affirm. Ours must become a civic liberalism.* This does not mean a return to the New Deal. Future liberals cannot be like the liberals of yore; too much has changed. But it will require that the spell of identity politics that has held two generations in its thrall be broken so that we can focus on what we share as citizens. I hope to convince my fellow liberals that their current way of looking at the country, speaking to it, teaching the young, and engaging in practical politics has been misguided and counterproductive. Their abdication must end and a new approach must be embraced.   It is a bittersweet truth that there has never been a better opportunity in half a century for liberals to start winning the country back. Republicans since Trump’s election are in disarray and intellectually bankrupt. Most Americans now recognize that Reagan’s “shining city upon a hill” has turned into rust belt towns with long-shuttered shops, abandoned factories invaded by local grasses, cities where the water is undrinkable and guns are everywhere, and homes across the country where families are scraping by with part-time minimum-wage jobs and no health insurance. It is an America where Democrats, independents, and many Republican voters feel themselves abandoned by their country. They want America to be America again. But there is no again in politics, just the future. And there is no reason why the American future should not be a liberal one. Our message can and should be simple: we are a republic, not a campsite. Citizens are not roadkill. They are not collateral damage. They are not the tail of the distribution. A citizen, simply by virtue of being a citizen, is one of us. We have stood together to defend the country against foreign adversaries in the past. Now we must stand together at home to make sure that none of us faces the risk of being left behind. We’re all Americans and we owe that to each other. That’s what liberalism means.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Mark Lilla" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mark-lilla/there-can-be-no-liberal-politics-without-a-sense-of-we-of-what-we-are/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2ed/mark-lilla-13300_collateral-damage_there-can-be-no-liberal-politics-without_1670953.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2ed/mark-lilla-13300_collateral-damage_there-can-be-no-liberal-politics-without_1670953.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2ed/mark-lilla-13300_collateral-damage_there-can-be-no-liberal-politics-without_1670953.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“There can be no liberal politics without a sense of we—of what we are as citizens and what we owe each…” — Mark Lilla", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/new-deal/mark-lilla/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/new-deal/mark-lilla/", "name": "New deal Quotes by Mark Lilla", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/new-deal/mark-lilla/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d80/mark-lilla-13300_common-good_the-most-important-lesson-is-this-that-f_1248046.jpg" }, "description": "2 New deal quotes by Mark Lilla. 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