For the longest time, “liberal” seemed like it basically just meant “Democrat” the same way “conservative” has/had been used to mean “Republican.” Now, it seems like it means “bad Democrat” and is even worse than being MAGA the way many seem to use it. Where did its use as an insult within the [relative] political left come from, and what does it specifically accuse/identify someone of/as?
I think others have answered your question better than me, but I’ll chip in my two cents anyway.
The definition depends on who is saying it.
Within mainstream US politics, Republicans use “liberal” as a catch-all pejorative for any person or group further to the left of themselves. It is usually aimed at Democrats but could also refer to Greens, communists, etc.
The irony is that, in a broader political context, Republicans are very much liberals, too. People outside the US political mainstream who sneer about “liberals” are usually referring to this larger group, which basically encompasses the capitalist status quo in the “western” world.
Using liberal as a derogatory says far more about the person saying it, than it does about those they say it about.
My advice is to not take them seriously.
It means “anyone who doesn’t immediately agree with anything I say/repeat” in magaspeak.
I think OP’s question is about why parts of the Democratic coalition are hostile to other parts of the Democratic coalition, not about why Republicans are hostile to Democrats.
If a self-proclaimed “part of the Democratic coalition” is dismissing whatever arguments you make by weirdly comparing you to John Locke as a slur, chances are they are they are not, in fact, part of the Democratic coalition. The fact that they are borrowing their slurs from the conventional fascists should be telling enough.
They might even share employer.
I think that even the people who are just as bad as you say are also part of the Democratic coalition simply because both they and I will be voting for Kamala Harris in November, although they will be doing it while complaining a lot. I’ll be complaining a little because I’m never going to support any candidate 100% but my ideal candidate would still be a centrist Democrat.
With that said, I’m not sure how long this coalition will hold together because I would rather vote for a centrist Republican than for a leftist. Right now the Republican party is the one dominated by its extremists but if they return towards the center (Trump won’t live forever) and the Democrats shift left, a lot of liberals will be reconsidering their political alliances.
Because something that gets lost in the two party system is that, at its core, there’s the conservative side trying to make things best for their majority group and then there’s a dozen different types of liberals trying to make the world better in their direction. One side wants to revert back, one “side” is pulling in a hundred different directions. Should we tackle education first? Financial responsibility? Human rights? Social safety nets? Pollution? Climate change? National interest? Global interest? There’s so many different topics that liberals want to progress forward in an order each individual determines. It’s not a single liberal force, it’s a hundred forces in a trench coat. Conservatives (of any country or topic) are some kind of incumbent majority/dominating demographic while the alternatives all fall under “liberal”. So the only thing that consistently unifies the democrats is what they don’t like
the only thing that consistently unifies the democrats is what they don’t like
Opposition to Trump is currently the strongest force uniting the Democrats, but I think there’s more dividing the Democrats than just a disagreement about which issues to prioritize.
For example, someone who prioritizes abortion rights usually also supports protecting the environment and vice versa. Most abortion-rights people and environmentalists agree about what the ideal end state is (both goals accomplished). However, someone who supports affirmative action and someone who opposes affirmative action may currently vote for the same candidate but they’re clearly opposed to each other in a way that the abortion-rights person and the environmentalists aren’t. The distinction between liberals and leftists is useful for describing many disagreements of the second sort, and it’s an important distinction because the dividing line between Democrats and Republicans won’t always cut across the same issues it does now.
It’s an insult in the US because the liberals in the Democratic party are considered to be on the right side of the political spectrum. Today’s liberals are seen as pushing the same stuff Republicans were pushing in the era of Reagan and Bush. Progressives in the party don’t really get much of a voice therefore they disparage the liberals that keep pushing the Overton window further and further right.
This is really just factually inaccurate though. Modern US liberals are actually further to the left than they were during the bush era, and are nowhere near as far right as the bush administration. (not sure about Reagan because that was before my time but I suspect it was similar). Democrats during that era were just coming off of the very centrist Clinton administration, and have gradually been moving left ever since.
The difference is the people criticizing liberals have become much more numerous and moved much further to the left than core democrats. Which is largely a good thing but I think it would help them be more strategic if they actually understood these things clearly.
Genuinely useful. I keep getting called a liberal online as a slur whenever I discuss politics, mostly by the accounts of people who could very well have been on a Russian payroll but are probably just deranged.
I was wondering what the fuck they were on about.
Gotcha, so it means fake leftists almost? Does it imply someone is even further right than a current “centrist”? Or more like, “the center is right wing at this point, and so much so that even the Dems who are just left of center are still on the right [but therefore less than centrists still]”? This is not meant to be obstinate, your response was just very helpful and I want to bracket in on where folks consider liberals to be on the political spectrum so I can understand/use it properly.
You might look up the term “neoliberalism” as I think there is a lot of overlap with the information you’re seeking and those who would be called liberal perjoratively.
Sigh, I’ll wade into this river of shit.
Liberalism is broadly understood as neoliberalism, which is an ideological descendant from classical liberalism. This ideology positions itself as being broadly in favour of individual freedom within a rather tight definition of freedom. Namely liberals are concerned with the ability of people to read what they like, own what they like, marry whomever they like and so on provided they do this inside of a system of capitalist free market exchange.
Modern liberalism tends to frown on heavy government intervention in market affairs, which they see as representing the free (and thus good) exchange of goods between individuals. They also tend to be broadly in favour of the militaristic western global hegemony.
Criticism of this attitude comes from 2 places.
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too much freedom.
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not enough freedom.
(1) is people that want women bound up in the kitchen and walk around with an odd gait that makes you remember Indiana Jones films
(2) are people (I’m in this camp) who see liberalism as a weak ideological position that favours stability over justice and, in so doing, ignores the suffering of billions.
Doesn’t the problems of the free market also fall in problem 1? The free market has been shown to not actually be self regulating, which is a sign of too much freedom.
… everyone? hence my use of broadly? It has complete and utter ideological hegemony since like the 70s. If you study economics you study neoliberal economics and they don’t even bother specifying. All major political parties in the anglosphere and most of western Europe follow neoliberal ideology, even the green-left is largely neoliberal. There are basically no classical liberals left.
Hmm, everyone I know, including very left leaning liberals I know who live in Hollywood, use liberal to represent actual liberal ideologies. They use Liberal (notice the capitalization) to represent neo-liberalism.
Edit: verbally they always specify “neo” if talking about neo liberalism.
freedom means occasionally you have to fight to defend that freedom and what it means to you. the stability of neoliberalism lulls the masses into placidity and complacency
I think it’s tempting to try and be pithy but freedom is complicated. For some people freedom is an absolute, do what you want when you want. For some it is about theoretical possibilities, for example if you ask if people are free to quit there job the answer heavily depends on how someone balances theory vs practice. Others take a practical lens, freedom only counts if it’s plausible to do.
Sometimes freedom is about ideals. you are free to read all the political theory you like, you umm wont because it’s boring but if someone threatened that would you be upset? At other junctures freedom because pragmatic, “what use is freedom to read if I don’t have freedom to eat? I’ll trade one for the other” someone might say.
Some people rate permissions more than restrictions, some the opposite.
I don’t think it’s a concept we can really pin down. Everyone has their own interpretation and it’s not universally values: much as dominant ideologies often insist it is, the rise of fascism should hint that others care much less about it.
