Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson/ Among the syndromes that make the current American moment so vexing is a liberal contingent duly alarmed but bereft and flummoxed in the face of unprecedentedly heedless and unrestrained illiberal forces. Concerned citizens – including elected officials – don’t know what to do, and they are clamoring for a sensibly energized way forward. Movies can reflect the zeitgeist quite resonantly and animate civic discourse. Lately, though, they have tended to divert to smaller-bore social issues and wistfulness for Americana or the counterculture without confronting what could happen to the country overall, Alex Garland’s Civil War excepted. Last week, however, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another landed. It is a fully sussed cri de coeur of liberal conscience, resistance, and resilience inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, and the first great political movie of the Trump era.