India-US partnership in a post-liberal world

American politics is undergoing a radical transformation.

- Swati Ramanathan

Trump 2.0 marks a seismic shift from the raw populism of 2016 to a post-liberal tsunami that is upending classical liberalism. Intellectuals like Patrick Deneen (Why Liberalism Failed) and Adrian Vermeule (Common Good Constitutionalism) have long warned that liberalism is hollowing out America—eroding community bonds and cultural anchors, and celebrating an atomized individualism. These ideas have snowballed into a force that is fueling a return to sovereign primacy, cultural authenticity, and a worker-first economy. The debate in America now pits nationalism against globalism, cultural rootedness versus tech utopia, and traditional working-class values against elite cosmopolitanism. Trump remains an ideological Rorschach test, but there's no mistaking his current team's post-liberal sympathies, markedly different from traditional Republican beliefs. JD Vance, the vice president and author of the biographical bestseller Hillbilly Elegy, is an articulate mascot of this new intellectual vanguard. Yet, internal tensions persist. Populist nationalists like Steve Bannon have clashed with newer adherents—dismissively labeling the Silicon Valley leaders swarming around Trump as "techno feudal globalists". These ruptures show that the lava hasn't yet cooled and set into a coherent narrative.

Parallel to America's reawakening, India is experiencing its own transformation. Casting off its Nehruvian secular framework, it is embracing an assertive Bharatiya identity. Focusing on cultural revival, economic nationalism and strategic autonomy, India is charting a path deeply rooted in its ancient ethos.