They Are Intolerant, Divisive, And Anti-Liberty — Call Them Leftists, Not Liberals

Freedom-loving Americans should not give leftists the power of being called ‘liberal.’ The term ‘leftist’ better describes their intolerance and desire to overthrow the established order.

Democrats have moved so far to the left in recent years that they should no longer be called “liberals,” unless the true liberals among them start to stand up to the leftists who have taken over. The term is misleading, giving the impression that Democrats support individual freedoms and accept people of different viewpoints, when increasingly they do not. The word “liberal” gives yet more power to those who seek to take more of our liberties.

Right-leaning publications often use the term “liberal” when “leftist” would be better. On the other hand, left-leaning newspapers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times like to use the word “liberal” to describe their own illiberal political views. It obfuscates how Democrats and their media allies have become more extreme, supporting censorship, authoritarianism, and racial division: Twitter staff who denied conservatives their right to free speech and eagerly complied with censorship demands from the federal government were described by the Post as milquetoast “liberal employees.” MSNBC says those pushing the tyranny of wokeness are just naughty-sounding “liberal rascals.”

To see how so-called liberals view themselves, we can look at The New York Times review earlier this year of Michael Walzer’s book “What Does It Mean to Be Liberal?” The book concludes the word is “an adjective, describing a state of mind common to people who think of themselves as liberals: ‘open-minded, generous and tolerant,’” according to the review.

It’s almost laughable. Does “tolerant” describe people who try to “cancel” those of different views, shouting them down, encircling their homes, and calling them disparaging names? Is it “open-minded” to try to force people to use so-called preferred pronouns as part of a transgender agenda? Or to block or hide conservatives’ social media accounts? Crisis pregnancy centers have been firebombed. A Christian cake artist in Colorado is still defending his right not to make a cake that celebrates transgenderism. Conservative scholars have even been physically attacked on college campuses. Last week, students at Stanford University disrupted a conservative judge’s speech with heckling.

It’s correct that the dictionary defines “liberal” as “open-minded” and “broad-minded.” But that’s hardly the right word for people who do not tolerate conservatives’ views on Covid-19 policies, abortion, climate change, transgenderism, and much else — this despite the fact there’s a growing consensus that state-mandated lockdowns don’t work, and that plying children with cross-sex hormones and cutting off their body parts is bad for their physical and mental health.

Walzer notes that so-called liberals don’t always manage to achieve their aspirations to be open-minded and tolerant. The Times’ article acknowledges, “That’s the idea, anyway, but we live in a world in which the illiberal right — and increasingly the left — no longer accept difference as legitimate.” But the conflation here is a lie; the right isn’t pushing for censorship or shouting down campus speakers. And it’s not just a few extremists within the ranks but the leadership of the Democrats who are condoning intimidation tactics and destruction of property — Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer among them.

Democrats Headed Further Leftward

As the Times notes, the left is “increasingly” intolerant. Part of why “liberal” no longer works to describe Democrats is the party has moved leftward, as many have noted, including The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan, comedian and commentator Bill Maher, and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in her State of the Union response.

Since at least 2020, Noonan wrote, Democrats “have aligned with or allowed themselves to be associated with … the identity politics-wokeness regime. (It’s amazing we still don’t have an agreed upon word or phrase that fully captures this program.)” That regime consists of transgenderism, climate alarmism, and so-called anti-racism. “The Democrats are the party of the left. Progressive pathologies morph into Democratic ideologies, tagging the party as radical. Why do the Democrats allow...

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