Last month, Harvard law professor and former Obama administration official Cass Sunstein published a lengthy defense of liberalism in the New York Times, most of it consisting of a numbered list detailing the various commitments that Sunstein argues make up the liberal tradition. At least some of his premise is fairly noncontroversial. Sunstein begins by observing that liberalism is under siege from both sides throughout much of the world:

On the left, some people insist that liberalism is exhausted and dying and unable to handle the problems posed by entrenched inequalities, corporate power and environmental degradation. On the right, some people think that liberalism is responsible for the collapse of traditional values, rampant criminality, disrespect for authority and widespread immorality.

Sunstein is broadly correct that anti-liberalism is on the march, but, partaking in some vintage horseshoe theory, he more than once implies there’s some vague equivalence to be drawn between its left and right versions.