I'm going to take beef with this. A liberal (by which I mean a New Deal-Great Society type, not classical) is not necessarily a leftist. I am not Trotsky or Lenin or Mao trying to overthrow a government. My political heroes are people like Hubert Humphrey, Paul Wellstone, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Nye Bevan, Michael Foot, and Eugene Victor Debs. You can disagree with these people and some might be more left than others but they all worked under the rules of Democratic order and rule of law. They did not commit acts of terrorism nor did they claim elections in which they lost were invalid. Eugene Victor Debs very principally went to jail over his dissent on WWI.
By using leftist, you call everyone to the left of center out as being a secret supporter of a Robspierre styled reign of terror while not similarly calling out the far right for their rhetorical excess. As someone else said above, there are large elements of the American Right-wing who simply seem to view support for any kind of center-left politics as being anti-American and we are still aliens. This is simply wrong.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Polarization and Persuasion”
"Leftists v. conservatives"
I'm going to take beef with this. A liberal (by which I mean a New Deal-Great Society type, not classical) is not necessarily a leftist. I am not Trotsky or Lenin or Mao trying to overthrow a government. My political heroes are people like Hubert Humphrey, Paul Wellstone, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Nye Bevan, Michael Foot, and Eugene Victor Debs. You can disagree with these people and some might be more left than others but they all worked under the rules of Democratic order and rule of law. They did not commit acts of terrorism nor did they claim elections in which they lost were invalid. Eugene Victor Debs very principally went to jail over his dissent on WWI.
By using leftist, you call everyone to the left of center out as being a secret supporter of a Robspierre styled reign of terror while not similarly calling out the far right for their rhetorical excess. As someone else said above, there are large elements of the American Right-wing who simply seem to view support for any kind of center-left politics as being anti-American and we are still aliens. This is simply wrong.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.