These are strange times for American liberals. We’re in what you might call a split-screen moment.

On one screen, Democrats are close to passing massive investments in our country and its people that rival the great progressive achievements of the 20th century. If you had told liberals 18 months ago that something this potentially transformative was on the horizon, many would have laughed bitterly in your face.

On the other screen, things look as dark as ever. Republicans are entrenching minority rule everywhere. The Virginia results suggest Republicans won’t pay a price for their embrace of insurrection and political violence. Republicans are all but certain to capture at least the House. President Biden’s sliding approval suggests a deep chasm between voter approval of Democrats’ actual agenda and the political fate that voters may soon mete out to them.And a Donald Trump comeback seems entirely plausible.

Given these whiplash-inducing story lines, how should liberals feel about this moment?

A trio of New York Times columnists has just taken on this question, and because these are ambitious and challenging pieces, it’s worth trying to synthesize big-picture narratives from all of them.

Paul Krugman argues for the first screen. As he notes, the vast Build Back Better expenditures are in keeping with our history of investment in infrastructure (the Erie Canal, the interstate highway system) and in our people (expanded high school and university education).

Biden’s agenda will spend hundreds of billions of dollars apiece on traditional infrastructure, on transitioning toward a decarbonized future, and on children via the expanded child tax credit and universal pre-K. All these, says Krugman, will have a “high social rate of return.”The returns on climate and infrastructure spending are obvious, and spending on children pays big dividends in healthier, happier, productive adults. In sum, Krugman notes, Biden is reviving our “tradition of public spending oriented toward the future.”

All this is cause for optimism, and I’d like to suggest an additional reason for it. If this goes well, it should perhaps be regarded as a serious down payment on a rehabilitated liberalism.

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