ABSTRACT
The Islamist movement remains the one major challenge to liberal democracy, yet both philosophies are faced with questions that compel introspections. In its coarseness and illiberal tendencies, Donald Trump’s presidency demonstrated that democracy is always a work in progress—even in the West. His handling of the massive Black Lives Matter protests especially elicited derision from governments the United States had admonished on civil rights. Meanwhile, the violence inspired by Islam and the poverty of Muslim countries around the world have undermined any notion of Islamic exceptionalism. Islam, in effect, is not a mortal challenge to the march of liberal democracy. Still, its spirituality—like that of all religions—plugs a hole in human nature that the Enlightenment discounted. So, in convergence, the Enlightenment will still triumph. But, along with science and reason, it is increasingly making a philosophical concession to faith and values.
