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There are many people who identify as liberal while basking in their rising home value and exclusive school districts, but they typically do so quietly, not under the banner of liberalism. The closest example of people doing this openly and proudly under a left-wing banner is San Francisco's Progressivism, which is more closely aligned with what we're calling leftism here than what we're calling liberalism. Overall, the various shades of the left are still pretty aligned on concrete policy at the national level. Liberals are pretty reliably in favor of single payer, education funding, minimum wage, family leave, etc. Where you start to see the fissure is around how universities should handle controversial material in the classroom and accusations of sexual misconduct in their student populations. The Christakis incident at Yale [0] is one of the best test cases. In particular, >...if you don’t like a costume someone is wearing, look away, or tell them you are offended. Talk to each other. Free speech and the ability to tolerate offense are the hallmarks of a free and open society. is one of those flash-point statements that separates liberals from leftists. This incident has been picked up as a rallying cry by the far-right so there's a lot of FUD flying around, but just to prove I'm not the only Democrat who would agree wholeheartedly, here's Obama [1]: > I think you should be able to — anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with ‘em. But you shouldn’t silence them by saying, "You can’t come because I'm too sensitive to hear what you have to say." That’s not the way we learn either. I would call Obama and has allies "liberals" here, and the protesters and their allies "leftists." Happy to be convinced otherwise on terminology, but it shows that there are at least two very distinct value systems going on here, which may be aligned on policy only by accident. [0]https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-per... [1]https://www.vox.com/2015/9/14/9326965/obama-political-correc... |