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Toward the end of the 20th centurythe term liberal went from being a source of pride for mostDemocrats,whofondly recalledthe New Deal era and thepresidency of Franklin Roosevelt the most beloved president of the century to being a cause of embarrassment for many Democratic politicians, who were suddenly being beratedfor their liberalism.While the term liberal had been generally associated with FDR and his popular New Deal policies throughout the mid-20th century, it had come to mean something quite different as the century progressed.

This shift was partly due to the evolving social and moral values held by many Northern liberals and the subsequent cultural backlash that followed in much of the country. But liberal only turned into a snarl word after decades of right-wing rhetoric that painted Democratic politicians and liberal thinkers (i.e., college professors and journalists) as out-of-touch cultural elitists who knew nothing and cared little about real America.

Of course, the rights effort to turn liberal into a dirty word was aided by many of the so-called liberal politicians of the late 20th century, who, rather than pushing back against the rights rhetoric, hopelessly ran away from the label (just as one might expect of a spineless liberal elite).

And today, decades after becoming a pejorative that implies elitist snobbery, the term liberal is still used to great effect by the right. Indeed, Donald Trump seems to have perfected the liberal-bashing rhetoric that was introduced in the 1980s, and offensive portmanteaus like libtard have gained popularity in the Trump era. But its not only right-wingers who use liberal as a slur these days. In 2017, liberal is almost as much of an insult on the left as it is on the right a theme that was recently broached by writer Nikil Saval in anessayfor the the New York Times Magazine. Among leftists, Saval notes, the liberal is seen as a weak-minded, market-friendly centrist, wonky and technocratic and condescending to the working class pious about diversity but ready to abandon any belief at the slightest drop in poll numbers.

At first it may seem that conservatives and leftists are criticizing liberals for opposite reasons: Right-wingers think that liberals are far-left ideologues, while actual leftists think that liberals lack core beliefs and are practically conservative. But the two critiques arent completely divergent; as Saval explains:

When it comes to diagnosing liberalism, both left and right focus on this same set of debilitating traits: arrogance, hypocrisy, pusillanimity, the insulated superiority of what, in 1969, a New York mayoral candidate called the limousine liberal. In other words, the features they use to distinguish liberals arent policies so much as attitudes.

This isnt entirely fair to critics on the left, who tend to focus more on policy differences and believe that the Democratic Party is far too centrist and technocratic (or, as many leftists would put it, neoliberal). One of the greatest disputes, for example, has been over health care, where progressives advocate single-payer universal coverage while liberals offer a sheepish defense of the patchwork system enacted under Obamacare.

Still, Saval makes a valid point in that both leftists and right-wingers are highly critical of the condescending and superior tone that many liberals exude, and thus share some affinities in their critiques. This was evident during the 2016 election campaign, when leftists criticized liberals for what writer Emmet Rensin called the smug style in anessayfor Vox,which wonsome praise from conservatives.Since the election, leftists and conservatives have also seen eye to eye when it comes to denouncing liberals like Markos Moulitsas, the founder of liberal website Daily Kos, who gleefully cheeredwhen it was reported earlier this year that people in red states would be disproportionately hurt by Trumpcare.Be Happy for Coal Miners Losing Their Health Insurance, declared Moulitsas on his blog. Theyre Getting Exactly What They Voted For. In another instance, the liberal blogger earned bipartisan condemnation (so to speak) when hetweetedin response to the Trump administration denying North Carolina hurricane aid: Theres your reward for voting Republican, North Carolina.

Liberals like Moulitsas have almost become caricatures of the smug and unsympathetic liberal elite that right-wingers have long depicted; its as if liberals have gradually come to adopt the ridiculous qualities that Republicans have assigned to them over the years. Which brings us to an important point: Leftists havent suddenly jumped on the liberal-bashing bandwagon because its the hip thing to do in the age of Trump, but because many self-described liberals have become the obnoxious and out-of-touch liberal elite that conservatives have long claimed them to be, while simultaneously shifting toward the right on various economic issues. (To be fair, obviously the right doesnt see it this way.) Saval touches on this in his Times Magazine essay, observing that to call someone a liberal today is often to denounce him or her as having abandoned liberalism.

American liberalism was once associated with something far more robust, with immoderate presidents and spectacular waves of legislation, notes Saval. Todays liberals stand accused of forsaking the clarity and ambition of even that flawed legacy.

This is obviously where left- and right-wing critiques of liberalism part ways. Indeed, right-wingers tend to focus almost exclusively on cultural and social factors in their criticisms, for the very reason that their economic policies are even more favorable to the elite than the policies of the liberal elite they disparage, who at least pay lip service to addressing problems like inequality and inadequate health care.

Left-wingers, on the other hand, see the cultural elitism of liberals as themanifestationof a larger problem namely, the abandonment of class politics and radical thinking. To appreciate the difference between modern liberals and old-school liberals, one simply has to considerthe sharp contrast in tone. In hisfamousMadison Square Gardenspeech,for example, FDR boldly declared:

We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred.

One would be hard-pressed to find any liberal today other than someone like Bernie Sanders, who isnteven considered a liberal in the contemporary sense gallantly welcoming the hatred of organized money (after all, most Democratic politicians depend on big donors from the financial sector to fund their campaigns).

In response to the left-wing calls for class politics, liberals have frequently argued that leftists have an unhealthy obsession with economic issues, and that they disregard social issues like LGBTQ rights or womens reproductive rights. Some liberals have even implied absurdly that left-wingers are closet cultural reactionaries. It was sometimes claimed during the 2016 primary campaign thatprogressives who favored Sanders didnt like Hillary Clinton because of her gender, rather than herpolitics. But this kind of deflection simply reinforces the leftist critique of liberals, who, as Saval puts it (in summarizing the lefts perspective), shroud an ambiguous, even reactionary agenda under a superficial commitment to social justice and moderate, incremental change.

At the end of the day, liberals and leftists agree on a lot more than they disagree, and thus one might look atthisinternalstrife as unhelpful and even destructive especially when Donald Trump is in the White House and Republicans control both houses of Congress. But left-wing critiques of liberalism have only grown more urgent and necessaryin the age ofTrump, as it is the failures of liberalism that led us here in the first place.

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Why we need the left-wing critique of liberalism: Because liberals got us where we are today - Salon

Canova was embraced last year by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders out of resentment against Wasserman Schultz who, as Democratic chair in 2016, sought to tilt the party machinery in favor of Clinton. Canova ran a strong race, raising tons of money, but lost. Sanders seems to be staying away from the current challenge.

In the Atlantic last week, McKay Coppins reported on leftist conspiracy theorists like the Palmer Report, a blog that focuses on Russia. It reported in April that Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, was resigning because of Russian blackmail. The whole story was nonsense.

Sites like this, Coppins wrote, embrace a world "where it is acceptable to allege that hundreds of American politicians, journalists and government officials are actually secret Russian agents."

Someone check Sen. Joseph McCarthy's gravesite.

The far left is divided on Russia and its thuggish leader Vladimir Putin. Many progressives are harshly critical, driven by their hostility to Trump and eager to believe that there are Trump ties to Putin.

But there is another element too. At the Moscow feast in December 2015, where Trump's foreign policy adviser Michael Flynn sat next to Putin, another Western politician at the head table was Jill Stein, the two-time Green Party presidential candidate. (She said she didn't even say hello to the Russian leader.)

Canova's most offensive gambit has been recycling a baseless right-wing conspiracy theory that a young Democratic staffer, Seth Rich, was murdered last year because he leaked the party emails in the presidential election. This was a charge leveled by Alex Jones, the conspiracy-minded talk-radio host and picked up by former House Speaker and present Trump confidant Newt Gingrich. The police found that Rich was murdered after a botched robbery attempt. Fox News retracted its own twisted story on the Rich killing.

Not Canova. Asked by the Florida Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald whether Rich's murder may have been related to the leaks, Canova replied: "I have no idea. I wondered what the DNC under Wasserman Schultz was capable of, but I don't know."

Calls to the number listed on his campaign website and messages to the designated email site went unanswered.

If this were a unique case, it would be enough to criticize Canova and move on. But anti-Trump passion will tempt liberals to make excuses for radical craziness, just as many mainstream Republicans have tolerated Trump's lies, insults and attacks. To keep the high ground, liberals should resist the urge to whip up hostility, and should condemn hate-mongers of the left.

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Albert Hunt: Liberals shouldn't tolerate the loony left - Salt Lake Tribune

As the afterglow of forming a new government in British Columbia begins to wear off, the provincial NDP still has a problem on its hands: who will be in the Speaker's chair the next time the legislature meets?

It's a dilemma, but not an insoluble one. All three parties have an interest right now infinding a solution short of an election; B.C. voters have made it clear in polls that they have no appetite for another election immediately. If an early election comes, the party deemed responsible may well suffer a penalty at the ballot box, much as we saw in the recent U.K. general election. The Liberals should do their part to avoid an immediate election by offering up one of their own for the job of Speaker.

Arguably, the Liberals have a greater need to appear co-operative now given the way the party lost power. Premier Christy Clark went against both precedent and her own previously stated intentions when she asked Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon to dissolve the legislature. Had Clark's request been granted, the province would be gearing up for an unwelcome summer election right now.

The other two parties might try to exploit the resulting vulnerability. Suppose no NDP or Green MLA stands for Speaker, perhaps citing deference to the convention of Speaker impartiality in doing so. Should no Liberal volunteer to stand for the job either, the party risks appearing serially uncooperative and election-seeking, more interested in the pursuit of power for its own sake than in the good governance of the province.

Beyond such tactical considerations, the Liberals have more fundamental problems. Most notably, they are in an ideological no-man's land right now. Having campaigned on its centre-right platform, the party not so much pivoted as cartwheeled to an entirely different agenda in their recentthrone speech.

If there's one thing that can derail a party for a couple election cycles, it's throwing into question its fundamental identity. Not knowing what the party truly stands for, many voters will be unwilling to trust any promises it makes. Even some core supporters may decide to sit out an election or two if they come to feel sufficiently alienated.

NDP takes power in British Columbia1:42

Accordingly, the party could use some time to get its house back in order. The clearest way to turn the page would be to find a new leader.Questions about Clark's have been swirling since her party's defeat in the legislature. No definitive answers have yet emerged, though some party supporters have expressed frustrations with the way in which the post-electoral situation played out.

That leads us back to the Speaker question. So long as the party remains on a war footing, it will be effectively impossible to carry out a leadership or thorough policy review, let alone a new leadership campaign.

If some faction of the Liberal party concludes that such reviews are in order, it could buy time to carry them out by putting forward a nominee for Speaker. There are other ways to accomplish the same effect negotiating Liberal support for certain bills and motions on anad hocbasis for instance but none with the same simplicity, freedom and predictability for the Liberals in opposition.

Certainly, there is ample precedent for an opposition member serving as Speaker when the situation calls for it. Long-time Liberal MP Peter Milliken served as Speaker for two successive federal Conservative governments, from 2006 until his retirement in 2011. He received widespread acclaim for his role in steering the Commons through a number of difficult situations.

Some Liberals will resist the idea of giving an inch to the new Green-supported NDP government, preferring instead to oppose everything right up to the point of election. Such obstruction comes with costs, however.

First, the Liberals will lose the chance to appear conciliatory in the eyes of the electorate, potentially undermining the party's pledge in the throne speech and elsewhere to cooperate in light of the close election. Such opposition would require them to somewhat awkwardly vote against other ideas they just proposed in their throne speech as well, deepening their ideological quandary as a result.

Perhaps most importantly, so long as the situation remains uncertain in Victoria, the Liberals must remain disciplined and loyal to their leader. They will lose the chance to engage in either a frank discussion of policy or a leadership review.

Simply put, the Liberals face a choice: obstruct or reorganize. They cannot do both simultaneously.

If a Liberal did stand for Speaker, the party would gain a measure of leverage over the government with the ever-present threat of withdrawal. Solve the NDP's problem in the present, and gain the ability to create a new headache for them down the road one that could well trigger an election at a more convenient time for the Liberals, or force the NDP down the contentious and potentially costly road of Speaker partisanization.

Call it a win-win-win. Everyone stands to benefit in the short term from the stability provided by a Liberal Speaker including the Liberals themselves.

This column is part ofCBC'sOpinion section.For more information about this section, please read thiseditor'sblogandourFAQ.

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The BC Liberals should offer up one of their own for the job of Speaker - CBC.ca

The silence in the liberal space over the spate of communal violence in West Bengal is getting deafening. Civil society members, who were out there last week holding #NotinMyName protests against the lynching of Muslims by extremists from the majority community, have turned blind to the riot in Basirhat, which is the latest in a long line of communal conflagrations directed against Bengals Hindus by radicals from the minority community. In fact, in what is now an established practice in Bengal, a large section of the local media even blacked out the Basirhat violence in order to maintain communal harmony. To talk about violence against the majority community has become politically incorrect in this country since the 1950s, courtesy the strange version of secularism cooked up by the so-called liberals. So hearts bleeding for Junaid, and rightly so, do not want to know about the young girls in Bengals Tehatta who were brutally thrashed by the police for protesting the minority-inspired ban on Saraswati puja in their school. These people do not seem to care that similar bans are becoming commonplace in Bengal, or that the majority community needs to go to court just to be able to immerse Durga idols on Bijoya Dashami, as else the government would postpone the immersion because it is taking place a day ahead of Muharram. They refuse to believe that demographic changes in the border districts of Bengal due to illegal infiltration and the resultant radicalisation of a section of the states minority population have created a tinderbox situation, which is a security threat to the entire country.

If all this sounds oh-so-communal to polite ears that differentiate between communities while shedding crocodile tears, lets secularise the issue by asking: why werent there any #NotinMyName protests against Akhilesh Yadavs government in Uttar Pradesh when the minority community came under attack in Muzaffarnagar in 2013? Voices were raised aplenty against the saffron hand behind the riots, but why was Yadav spared? Where were these protests when, in 2012, Assam under Tarun Gogois Congress government witnessed a bloodbath of Bengali Muslims? Why did the people who suffered, those who died, become forgotten statistics? Is it because governments run by a secular Samajwadi Party and Congress cannot be berated for their inability to control violence against the minority community? Just as a liberal Mamata Banerjee cannot be censured for her brand of politics, which protects and promotes a particular section of the population at the cost of another for the sake of votes? Must outrage be politicised to the extent that it appears inhumane?

What about beef lynching, you ask? There cannot be any justification of any lynching, either perpetrated by a mob fighting for train seats, or another bunch hunting for people carrying or consuming beef. Its unacceptable. Violence cannot be allowed to be mainstreamed, normalised, or made par for the course. No amount of statistics about lynching then and now, or these being stray incidents, can justify something that is monstrous and should not have happened.

Liberal outrage is selective in nature primarily because its rooted in politics, although claiming to be apolitical. The main aim is to retain power and controlof the narrative, among various other thingsthat they lost to the man they repeatedly describe as the fascist facilitator of right-wing violence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Of course the government has to be shaken up to act against what is barbaric, but then questions arise about the intent of the outrage, when it becomes obvious that the leading lights of the liberal order are also known Modi baiters, who thrive on abusing the PM and have been raising the bogey of minorities under siege for the last three years, generally without the backing of facts.

At the same time, the government cannot be absolved of responsibilities in these few lynching cases. Law and order may be a state subject, but it is incumbent on the Centres part to ensure that the states implement on the ground the strong message given by the Prime Minister against cow vigilantism. There must be stricter enforcement of the law on the ground. It is time to disabuse the vigilante groups of the notion that they can get away with murder, just because their government is in power. In a democracy, the government always belongs to the people, and lets keep it that way.

In what is now an established practice in Bengal, a large section of the local media blacked out the Basirhat violence in order to maintain communal harmony.

Truth be told, Indians are tiring of the cacophony over cow and beef. It is distracting them from the narrative of development that PM Modi wants to build. Personal spaces are sacred, where freedom of the individual is paramount. Dress and food habits are areas where there should not be any government intrusion. If we truly believe in democracy, if we want to emerge as a world power, that space is best left untouched. A nations greatness is measured by the way government treats its people, and curbs on food habits, in this case, impact them directly and sometimes violently, as evident through the lynching cases, so are unacceptable. We are neither China nor Pakistan.

As for the upholders of the liberal order in this country, their secular credentials will not be damaged if they speak up for the victims of Basirhat for a change, even if these people are Hindus. We are waiting.

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Silence of the 'liberals' - The Sunday Guardian

A fresh battle looms in the Victorian Liberal Party, with Opposition Leader Matthew Guy facing internal divisions over his election plan to scrap the Safe Schools program.

Twelve months after Mr Guy announced he would replace Safe Schools with a "genuine" anti-bullying initiative if he winsgovernment next year, some Liberals are angered there has been no policy work on an alternative to help LGBTI students.

The issue has become such a sensitive topic within sections of the party that a new Liberal Pride gay group headed by federal Minister Christopher Pyne's adviser, Rory Grant recently met with state education spokesman Nick Wakeling to raise concerns.

But at the same time, conservativeLiberals are holding "information forums" to attack Safe Schools and drum up further opposition among community and ethnic groups in the lead up to next year's state election.

One such forum was recently held with the Chinese community at the Victorian Liberals' Exhibition Street headquarters, featuring presentations from federal MP Michael Sukkar and state president Michael Kroger. Another recently took place in Cranbourne, with upper house state MP Inga Peulich as one of the key speakers.

The divisions are another example of internal tensions that continue to simmer within the Liberal Party, but could prove sensitive for Mr Guy as he attempts to woo voters in the political middle ground against the socially progressive Daniel Andrews.

At the federal level, a broader cultural war exploded in the past fortnight when Mr Pyne was secretly recorded at a bar with factional allies claiming that same-sex marriage could happen "sooner than everyone thinks".

While the Opposition will abolish Safe Schools,Mr Wakeling has also confirmed that the Liberals will not go to the election with a policy outlining what sort of anti-bullying program will replace it.

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"The Victorian Liberal and National Parties committed last year to scrapping the Safe Schools program and replacingit with a comprehensive anti-bullying program thatfocuseson respect and tolerance for all people. This new program will be developed upon the election of a Coalition government," he said.

However, some Liberals are concerned thatLGBTIstudents could suffer without a comprehensive plan, with one source telling Fairfax Media:"The last thing we want to see isLGBTIstudents being placed at risk."

Safe Schools was piloted in Victoria in 2010 after teachers asked for a specific set of resources to help them support students who were "coming out" as same-sex attracted or gender diverse.

But despitereceiving bipartisan support from the Baillieu/Napthine governments, the program became a political powderkeg last year after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull ordered a review at the behest of right-wing MPs who claimed it was "indoctrinating children" and pushing a "radical Marxist agenda".

While federal funding ceased on July 1, the Andrews government remains committed to rolling out the programto every public school, with Education Minister James Merlino telling Fairfax Media this week:"All government secondary schools will be Safe Schools by the end of 2018."

However, some changes have quietly been made since the Education Department took over running Safe Schools this year from itscontroversial founder, Roz Ward. Among the new requirements, schools must now have a statement reflecting their commitment to creating an inclusive and safe environment for all students, an "action statement" outlining how they will do this, and they must also identify the intended outcomes they expect to achieve.

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Victorian Liberals face internal divisions over Safe Schools ahead of election - The Age