In my adolescence I thought this book was a prescient look at liberalism's upcoming demise. As an adult I realize it's a defense of liberalism by method of critiquing it. People like Deneen are paranoid of their society's decline and only try to preserve its dominance by questioning its foundation, but never replacing them. When faced with genuinely illiberal alternatives they cower in fear and defend the values of their inherently liberal societies in the midst of them whining about it.

This means that Fukuyama is the one that actually has the last laugh of course -- even liberalism's critics are just boring liberals. There are virtually no non-liberals in the West at all. Anyone caught up in this debate about liberalism's terminal decline is not thinking enough in the long-term.