When woke mobs began chasing off guest speakers from college campuses and elite institutions started investigating scientists over minor infractions against gender orthodoxy, a certain class of moderate progressives realized its reign was ending. Figures like Sam Harris, Bari Weiss, and Michael Shermer weren’t conservatives by any stretch. In the George W. Bush or Barack Obama years, they would have qualified as mainstream progressives. But they couldn’t keep pace with the radical left.

These disaffected progressives needed a new label. But they couldn’t bring themselves to align with the “backward” conservatives they’d spent careers ridiculing. Venture capitalist Eric Weinstein coined the term “Intellectual Dark Web,” which Weiss attempted to popularize in the New York Times. But most settled on “classical liberal” to describe their stance. The problem? They had spent years rejecting classical liberalism.

Disillusioned progressives are not conservatives. They’re not classical liberals, either. They don’t get to define the future of the right.

“Classical liberal” serves as the ideal label for repackaging Obama-era liberalism in a way that reassures Republicans while keeping a safe distance from the woke left. It sounds moderate compared to identity politics. It evokes America’s founders — Washington, Jefferson, Adams. If you want to appear reasonable to conservatives while shielding yourself from attacks on your right flank, aligning with the founders is a smart move.

Whether the branding strategy was intentional remains debatable. What’s not in question is how badly this self-description distorted classical liberalism.

Some members of the Intellectual Dark Web drifted right. Most did not. They held tightly to progressive instincts. Many were atheists. Some had built careers in the New Atheist movement, penning books mocking Christianity and debating apologists for sport. Several were openly gay, and most championed same-sex marriage. These were not defenders of tradition — they spent decades undermining it.

They didn’t oppose the revolution. They led it — until the mob turned on the parts they still cherished, like feminism or science.

Toleration of all ... except atheists

When the Intellectual Dark Web embraced the “classical liberal” label, it did so to defend free speech. Most of these disillusioned progressives had been canceled — for “misgendering” someone, for not parroting the latest racial orthodoxies, or for refusing to bow to ideological litmus tests. They longed for an earlier version of progressivism, one where they still held the reins, and radical activists didn’t dictate the terms of debate.

This shared frustration became the rallying point between conservatives and anti-woke liberals. Free speech offered common ground, so both sides leaned into it. But classical liberalism involves far more than vague nods to open dialogue.

Some trace liberalism’s roots to Machiavelli or Hobbes. But in the American tradition, it begins with John Locke. Much of the Declaration of Independence reads like Thomas Jefferson channeling Locke — right down to the line about “life, liberty, and property,” slightly rewritten as “the pursuit of happiness.”

In “A Letter Concerning Toleration,” Locke argued for religious toleration among Christian sects. He even entertained the idea of tolerating Catholics — if they renounced allegiance to the pope. But Locke drew a hard line at one group: atheists.

“Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God,” Locke wrote. “Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist ... [they] undermine and destroy all religion can have no pretense of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of a toleration.”

For Locke, atheism was social acid. It dissolved the moral glue holding a nation together. A silent unbeliever who kept to himself might avoid trouble — but even then, Locke saw no reason to trust such a man with power. Atheism, in Locke’s view, posed a civilizational threat.

Indispensable religion

Now, consider the irony. Many of today’s self-declared “classical liberals” rose to prominence attacking religion. They led the New Atheist crusade. They mocked believers, ridiculed Christianity, and wrote bestsellers deriding faith as delusion. These weren’t defenders of liberal order. They launched a secular jihad against the very moral foundation that made liberalism possible.

Their adoption of the “classical liberal” label isn’t just unserious. It’s either historically illiterate or deliberately deceptive.

It’s a mistake to treat America’s founders as a monolith. They disagreed — often sharply — and those disagreements animate much of the "Federalist Papers." But one point remains clear: Their understanding of free speech and religious liberty diverged sharply from modern secular assumptions.

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Even after the Constitution and Bill of Rights were ratified, several states retained official churches. Courts regularly upheld blasphemy laws well into the 20th century. Some state supreme courts continued defending them into the 1970s. Blue laws, which restrict commerce on Sundays to preserve the Sabbath, remain on the books in several states.

John Adams put it plainly: The Constitution was “made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” The founders, and the citizens they represented, expected America to function as an explicitly Christian nation. Free speech and religious liberty existed within that framework — not apart from it.

Skin suit liberalism

So when non-woke liberals claim that “classical liberalism” demands a secular or religiously neutral government, they misrepresent history. That idea would have struck the founders as absurd. The Constitution was not written for New Atheists. Adams said so himself.

Faced with these historical facts, critics usually pivot. They argue that America has morally advanced beyond its founding values. Today, we tolerate non-Christian religions, recognize women’s rights, and legalize same-sex marriage. These changes, they claim, bring us closer to “true” American principles like freedom and equality.

Classical liberalism was a real political tradition — one that helped shape the American founding. It deserves serious treatment. Watching it get paraded around by people who reject its core values is exhausting. If Locke or Adams saw progressive atheists wearing classical liberalism like a skin suit, they’d spin in their graves.

The secular liberalism of the 1990s and early 2000s is not classical liberalism. It isn’t even an ally of conservatism. The non-woke left served as useful co-belligerents against the radical fringe, but they were never true allies — and they should never be allowed to lead the conservative movement.

Some have earned respect. Carl Benjamin, Jordan Peterson, and others have taken real steps to the right, even toward Christianity. That deserves credit. But let’s not kid ourselves. Many who still fly the “classical liberal” banner don’t believe in the values it represents. They reject its religious foundation. They rewrite its history. They co-opt its label while advancing a worldview its founders would have rejected outright.

Disillusioned progressives are not conservatives. They’re not classical liberals, either. They don’t get to define the future of the right. And they certainly don’t get to lead it.