In the aftermath of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, CMC History Professor Lily Geismer’s research interests seem both perfectly timed and astutely relevant.
Focused on 20th century political and urban history in the United States, Geismer is the author of previous books, Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality and Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party. Her latest collection, co-edited with Brent Cebul, published earlier this year, Mastery and Drift: Professional Class Liberals Since the 1960s, is a compilation of scholarly essays exploring the formation of “professional-class liberalism” and its central role in remaking electoral politics and the practice of governance.
It is no wonder that Geismer’s expertise has been in high demand and on display in several recent podcast appearances and magazine articles. In her latest publications, Geismer extends the themes she explored in her previous book, Left Behind, which delved into the 1980s, 1990s, and the rise of the New Democrats and the President Bill Clinton era.
“The new book looks at the rise of what we call professional class-liberalism, which is something that I’ve tracked through all of my work,” Geismer said. “This question about how the Democratic Party has shifted away from its union, working-class base to a more affluent, college-educated, suburban-centered one. But the other piece of this project has been to look at how professional-class ideas have come to shape Democrats’ vision of governance, how they've brought a technocratic vision and a professionalized worldview into the policies that they adopt.
“The 2024 election results have confirmed some of the arguments of Left Behind… how the Democrats embraced market-based solutions over the course of a long period of time, and how that faith in economic growth in areas like finance and trade led to overall economic growth in the 90s, but left many Americans behind,” she said.
During the spring 2025 semester, Geismer is teaching “Cold War America” and “Race in American Cities,” and is looking forward in the fall to co-teaching a cross-disciplinary course called “Social and Environmental Inequalities in the Inland Empire” with Branwen Williams, George R. Roberts Professor of Integrated Sciences: Environmental Science and Director of the Roberts Environmental Center.
Of her CMC colleagues, Geismer said she is “amazed at the high caliber of research that people are doing across every field.” She is also “incredibly grateful” for CMC’s “strong emphasis on faculty research,” which has long influenced her book projects.