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?” It 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.’”
It’s almost laughable. Does “tolerant” describe people who try to “cancel” those of different views, shouting them down, encircling their
