Anyone else becoming terrified of Liberals.

alastair

KingBrian2 wrote: »

49- 47 against i'd say we have a slim majority against Pres Obama's transformation program.

I'm seeing 20% supportive of Trump's repeal approach.

alastair

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Jews, Christians make up a huge percentage of the US population and by letting in large numbers of Muslims in like this without restrictions or background documents you are merely adding to the suspicion and disorder.

Nobody (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or whatever) is getting refugee status in the US without background documents. What exactly do you think is taking so long in the current refugee processing arrangements?

http://time.com/4116619/syrian-refugees-screening-process/

listermint

alastair wrote: »

Nobody (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or whatever) is getting refugee status in the US without background documents. What exactly do you think is taking so long in the current refugee processing arrangements?

You'll notice trump as changed tack from originally proclaiming there is no vetting non existent checks to now using terminology extreme vetting.

He must have found out about all of the existing vetting in place already. Perhaps from a tv program or the back of a cornflakes box

A Primal Nut

Jimmy Garlic wrote: »

She is using her fame to reach an audience in order to call for violence. She has something like 10 million Twitter followers and she is calling for violence. Is that acceptable?

Totally acceptable. Most peaceful democracies were started by violent revolution. France didn't politely ask Louis XVI for equality. George Washington and Michael Collins didn't politely ask the British for independence. They used violence and are celebrated as heroes for doing so.

When you've got a leader in power who is willing to use violence, his opponents are entitled to respond in kind. What the alt-right want is to have a leader who can encourage violence as much as he wants, but his opponents are not allowed to defend themselves.

Plenty of videos have emerged in the last few years of unarmed African Americans being shot in the back while running away by police officers, and Trump supported the police officers. Yet his supporters insist African Americans should protest peacefully? Why should they?

Widdershins

A Primal Nut wrote: »

Totally acceptable. Most peaceful democracies were started by violent revolution. France didn't politely ask Louis XVI for equality. George Washington and Michael Collins didn't politely ask the British for independence. They used violence and are celebrated as heroes for doing so.

When you've got a leader in power who is willing to use violence, his opponents are entitled to respond in kind. What the alt-right want is to have a leader who can encourage violence as much as he wants, but his opponents are not allowed to defend themselves.

Plenty of videos have emerged in the last few years of unarmed African Americans being shot in the back while running away by police officers, and Trump supported the police officers. Yet his supporters insist African Americans should protest peacefully? Why should they?

I knew it was only a matter of time before someone praised the French Revolution. Celebrated as Heroes on what planet?

Telpis!

Please don't lets go down that road..think Mahatma Gandhi, not guillotines

WinnyThePoo

The hatred of celebrities who have a big audience is hilarious.

If only big names would come out in support of trump!

We have a poster giving out about free speech whilst promoting a pol pot style solution to dissenters.

Utterly fascinating reading. When the masks falls. It falls hard.

demfad

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Are those entering the US from those Muslim countries even citizens in their homeland. The US is offering amnesty to certain Muslims in certain parts of the world this is bound to stoke up tensions at home. Jews, Christians make up a huge percentage of the US population and by letting in large numbers of Muslims in like this without restrictions or background documents you are merely adding to the suspicion and disorder.

What disorder? By creating ridiculous bans you are adding suspicion.

These are not restrictions, these are outright bans on people from certain countries including refugees. Individuals from these countries haven't killed anyone in America in decades. Individuals from countries not in the banned list have. It is not strenghtening security.

red ears

WinnyThePoo wrote: »

The hatred of celebrities who have a big audience is hilarious.

If only big names would come out in support of trump!

We have a poster giving out about free speech whilst promoting a pol pot style solution to dissenters.

Utterly fascinating reading. When the masks falls. It falls hard.

Nobody seems to listen to them preaching. One of the guys from special things or whatever its called came across as completely unhinged roaring and shouting and threatening violence at an awards ceremony.

KingBrian2

demfad wrote: »

What disorder? By creating ridiculous bans you are adding suspicion.

These are not restrictions, these are outright bans on people from certain countries including refugees. Individuals from these countries haven't killed anyone in America in decades. Individuals from countries not in the banned list have. It is not strenghtening security.

The media has characterized it as a ban and in doing so they are fanning the flames of discrimination. If a conservative recommended any restrictions on travel from a Muslim country the liberals or persons speaking in the name of liberalism would claim that policy is un American or inhuman. What is really screwed up here is the polarization between liberalism and conservatism and both sides feel they need to take a hardline just to get their position across.

alastair

KingBrian2 wrote: »

The media has characterized it as a ban and in doing so they are fanning the flames of discrimination.

They've characterised it as a ban, because it is a ban. Ask this man:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/826060143825666051?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

KingBrian2

alastair wrote: »

They've characterised it as a ban, because it is a ban. Ask this man:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/826060143825666051?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

It would be great to have details of the ban instead of the cherry picked bullet points. Media personality number 1. "Does it have Muslim on the front page title?" "Why yes it does as well as....." "Yeah were good."

alastair

KingBrian2 wrote: »

It would be great to have details of the ban instead of the cherry picked bullet points.

So, just to confirm - when you say the media is fanning the flames of discrimination by calling a ban a ban, and that ban has been introduced by the man who said he was going to stop Muslims entering the country, and his sidekick says that the current ban is a mechanism to attempt a legal ban of Muslims, it's a problem on account of the media, and not the source of the actual discrimination?

Zubeneschamali

KingBrian2 wrote: »

It would be great to have details of the ban

20 minutes ago you were giving out that the media were calling it a ban, and now (after seeing that Trump called it a ban) you call it a ban yourself?

From December:

“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” he said in the statement. He added later, “It is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension.”

Rudy Giuliani on what Trump asked him to do:
So when he first announced it he said “Muslim ban.” He called me up, he said, “Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.” I put a commission together with judge Mukasey, with congressman McCaul , Pete King, a whole group of other very expert lawyers on this, and what we did is we focused on, instead of religion, danger—areas of the world that create danger for us. Which is a factual basis, not a religious basis. Perfectly legal, perfectly sensible. And that’s what the ban is based on. It’s not based on religion, it’s based on places where there are substantial evidence that people are sending terrorists into our country.

So Trump asked Giuliani to devise a Muslim ban that somehow would be legal, and this was what they came up with.

lawred2

StupidLikeAFox wrote: »

Im worried that everybody seems to be put into a narrowly defined box these days. Express an opinion and you are either a bleeding heart liberal or an alt-right fascist. Its us against them and you are one or the other. It drowns most of the actual debate.

It's the refuge of the simpleton... incapable of nuance

It's boring in the extreme

And dangerous

KingBrian2

alastair wrote: »

So, just to confirm - when you say the media is fanning the flames of discrimination by calling a ban a ban, and that ban has been introduced by the man who said he was going to stop Muslims entering the country, and his sidekick says that the current ban is a mechanism to attempt a legal ban of Muslims, it's a problem on account of the media, and not the source of the actual discrimination?

Yes exactly the media is fanning the flames of discrimination. The media interacts with the Presidents spokespersons and when they provide inaccurate or lacking detail on important legislation brought in by the executive it is on the media to inform the public and provide the full picture. Many media outlets do not chose to do this and the result is confusion for the public.

KingBrian2

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

20 minutes ago you were giving out that the media were calling it a ban, and now (after seeing that Trump called it a ban) you call it a ban yourself?

From December:

“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” he said in the statement. He added later, “It is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension.”

Rudy Giuliani on what Trump asked him to do:
So when he first announced it he said “Muslim ban.” He called me up, he said, “Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.” I put a commission together with judge Mukasey, with congressman McCaul , Pete King, a whole group of other very expert lawyers on this, and what we did is we focused on, instead of religion, danger—areas of the world that create danger for us. Which is a factual basis, not a religious basis. Perfectly legal, perfectly sensible. And that’s what the ban is based on. It’s not based on religion, it’s based on places where there are substantial evidence that people are sending terrorists into our country.

So Trump asked Giuliani to devise a Muslim ban that somehow would be legal, and this was what they came up with.

I call it a ban because the media tell me it is a ban. The media tell me the President of the United States of America is behaving unconstitutionally. The media is telling me Muslims are on the war path so you see we know very little the media provides soundbites and that is all.

alastair

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Yes exactly the media is fanning the flames of discrimination.

By reporting the administrations actions. Gotcha.

And by reporting crime, they're presumably fanning the flames of criminality in general?

Zubeneschamali

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Many media outlets do not chose to do this and the result is confusion for the public.

Most of us are very clear - Trump wanted to ban Muslims, was told that was illegal, so attempted a disguised ban on some Muslims. So far, the courts are not fooled.

Zubeneschamali

KingBrian2 wrote: »

I call it a ban because the media tell me it is a ban.

You denied it was a ban, you said the media were wrong to call it a ban until someone quoted Trump himself calling it a ban, and then you suddenly started calling it a ban.

But somehow it is still the media's fault.

KingBrian2

alastair wrote: »

By reporting the administrations actions. Gotcha.

And by reporting crime, they're presumably fanning the flames of criminality in general?

Up to this point the media did not even accept the result of the election. We have seen very little stability in D.C. at this stage and clearly the media is exploiting the chaos of the campaign season to tear down this administration before it even gets up and running. I want to see transparent politics but i also know that broadcasting hostile views while politicians are trying to make important decisions will sew tensions among communities.

KingBrian2

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

You denied it was a ban, you said the media were wrong to call it a ban until someone quoted Trump himself calling it a ban, and then you suddenly started calling it a ban.

But somehow it is still the media's fault.

It was the media that spread the word that Trump was outlawing Muslims from entering the US so yes that is down to the newsrooms in America. That statement i just said "Trump was outlawing Muslims from entering the US." is an untruth that has been fed to an army of hostile liberal protesters.

eire4

To my mind being liberal is being open and tolerant and that to my mind is a laudable position. Within any sphere it is possible to find extremists whom nobody in their right mind would support and there is no doubt that there are bad people out there who claim to be liberal. It does not make liberalism as an ideology dangerous. Quite the opposite in my opinion.

alastair

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Up to this point the media did not even accept the result of the election.

Except for where they did. Care to point out an instance of a journalist refuting the outcome of the election?

alastair

KingBrian2 wrote: »

It was the media that spread the word that Trump was outlawing Muslims from entering the US so yes that is down to the newsrooms in America.

You're thinking of Donald J Trump. You might remember he was getting his message directly out to the people?

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/673993417429524480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Walter H Price

The polarization and widening division of society as a whole at the moment is very unsettling. I'm not one for conspiracy theories or any of that stuff , but i do believe the media is having a massive impact on this widening division through very biased and emotive reporting.

You are really left looking and thinking where has the neutrality in the media gone and what is the end game of having people so viciously divided on issues of such little relevance to them e.g Trump or any of the American election campaign

Zubeneschamali

KingBrian2 wrote: »

"Trump was outlawing Muslims from entering the US." is an untruth that has been fed to an army of hostile liberal protesters.

But I quoted a statement by Trump in December saying he was going to ban Muslims from entering America, and one from Rudy saying Trump asked him to make it legal, leading to the EO in question.

So we know, not from the media, but from Trump and Giuliani, that this was an attempt to fulfill Trumps promise to ban Muslims.

KingBrian2

Walter H Price wrote: »

The polarization and widening division of society as a whole at the moment is very unsettling. I'm not one for conspiracy theories or any of that stuff , but i do believe the media is having a massive impact on this widening division through very biased and emotive reporting.

You are really left looking and thinking where has the neutrality in the media gone and what is the end game of having people so viciously divided on issues of such little relevance to them e.g Trump or any of the American election campaign

Agreed liberals and conservatives need to work together to help defend and rebuild America. The media will always be there lurking in the background but Washington politicians have to make laws that will restrict Islamic terrorists coming into their country and gvt has to provide safeguards for the public.

Zubeneschamali

Walter H Price wrote: »

i do believe the media is having a massive impact on this widening division through very biased and emotive reporting.

I believe the opposite: throughout Obama's term, the media in the US fell over themselves to try and report Republican attacks on Obama and Hillary as if they were real and not just made-up nonsense.

They abdicated their responsibility to report that actually Obama was born in the USA, and the birthers (including Trump) are telling lies.

Their stories on Hillary should have read "Republicans lying about Benghazi again" or "Comey disgraces himself by lying in partisan bid to elect Trump", but instead they pretend there were no facts, just two contrasting opinions.

And now we have Trump, who lies his head off, sends his press spokesman out to lie, and has an "adviser" Conway who has not yet managed to get through a single interview or statement without lying.

The media encouraged this. Trump is quite right to suppose that most of them will confine themselves to saying things like "opinions differ" on the size of the inauguration crowd, or whether Trump is in Putins pocket, or whether Iraqis massacred US troops at Bowling green, or whether Trump is the most unpopular President since people started measuring popularity.

He said, she said, there is no truth.

professore

It's this kind of stuff that scares the hell out of me: https://medium.com/@tuckerfitzgerald/intolerant-liberals-4ecd712ac939#.uckcsfg5p

And this is NORMAL stuff now. Call anyone who voted for Trump worse than the devil. Now Trump is probably the devil, but demonising an entire demographic of people many of whom just saw Trump as a better choice than Hillary, not without justification, sounds suspiciously like racism to me? We all know politicians don't keep their promises ... who knew Trump would actually keep his????

have some difficult news for everyone: Progressives aren’t interested in diversity. We aren’t interested in inclusion. We aren’t interested in tolerance. The progressives I know give exactly zero ****s about those things.
We have no interest in everyone getting treated the same. We have no interest in giving all ideas equal airtime. We have no interest in “tolerating” all beliefs. I don’t know where this fairy tale comes from, but it’s completely disconnected from every experience I’ve had with progressive liberal folks in my lifetime.

Personally I’m not interested in a female president for the sake of “diversity.” Putting a woman in the white house in 2020 won’t mean that gender equality has arrived. We’ve had 43 presidents. It’s going to take 43 women serving as president before we even have a chance to reach parity.

Hmmm ... so we kill 6 million Germans to avenge the Holocaust?

Because democracy isn’t the only value we hold. We don’t accept the 51% enslaving the 49% by popular vote. We believe in human rights. We believe in the Bill of Rights.

They don't believe in democracy though.

And no, your right to not sell flowers doesn’t outweigh someone else’s right to get married. Because not all rights are equal.

Forcing a business to sell to someone they don't want to is called a dictatorship. Let the market punish them for being stupid.

Conservatives not having taken to the streets to riot when Obama was elected doesn’t prevent us from taking to the streets to direct as much resistance to Trump as humanly possible. Because Trump and Obama aren’t equal.

WTF???? They are equal.

Or Trump may be bad, but Hillary is bad too, don’t forget. She called racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and Islamophobia “deplorable.”

No she didn't. She called a huge swathe of the US population deplorable, including large sections of people labelled by all the above tags who actually voted for Trump.

Hank Scorpio

alastair wrote: »

Except for where they did. Care to point out an instance of a journalist refuting the outcome of the election?

Reputable journalists on twitter calling for his assassination the night he was elected was more damaging than refuting the election results.

KingBrian2

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

I believe the opposite: throughout Obama's term, the media in the US fell over themselves to try and report Republican attacks on Obama and Hillary as if they were real and not just made-up nonsense.

They abdicated their responsibility to report that actually Obama was born in the USA, and the birthers (including Trump) are telling lies.

Their stories on Hillary should have read "Republicans lying about Benghazi again" or "Comey disgraces himself by lying in partisan bid to elect Trump", but instead they pretend there were no facts, just two contrasting opinions.

And now we have Trump, who lies his head off, sends his press spokesman out to lie, and has an "adviser" Conway who has not yet managed to get through a single interview or statement without lying.

The media encouraged this. Trump is quite right to suppose that most of them will confine themselves to saying things like "opinions differ" on the size of the inauguration crowd, or whether Trump is in Putins pocket, or whether Iraqis massacred US troops at Bowling green, or whether Trump is the most unpopular President since people started measuring popularity.

He said, she said, there is no truth.

The erosion of the truth of the media goes back to the Bush years. The Iraq war. Of course the most important detail that Saudi Arabia was a big financier of Jihadi organisations. Fact of the matter is that the press of the past can best be described as liberal with the truth and some matters are better left secret. All those journalists that are war correspondents. Much of their info was unverified and had dubious sources.

DEFTLEFTHAND

conditioned games wrote: »

Those liberals that seek to stamp out different opinions by shouting, using insult words or even violence are a threat to democracy. However a larger share of liberals I would like to think are open to different view points and so I wouldn't try conform to whatever the mainstream media is telling us.

They're not liberals, they're regressive leftists.

A classical liberal is nothing like an RL, and they don't like being associated with them.

It would be like associating your average conservative with a skinhead.

alastair

professore wrote: »

No she didn't. She called a huge swathe of the US population deplorable, including large sections of people labelled by all the above tags who actually voted for Trump.

Actually - she did. She stipulated why the deplorable were deplorable. Seems fair enough to me. She over-estimated the percentage of course, and rightfully apologised for that, but you can't argue that such deplorable attitudes reside in Trump's support base.

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?


The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now how 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America. But the other basket -- and I know this because I see friends from all over America here -- I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas -- as well as, you know, New York and California -- but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

alastair

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Reputable journalists on twitter calling for his assassination the night he was elected was more damaging than refuting the election results.

Like which reputable journalists?

VeryOwl

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

They're not liberals, they're regressive leftists.

Not sure how useful this label is in reality though. It's always seemed a bit forced.

I suppose it helps people like Dave Rubin sell mugs with #TriggerWarning, and feel smug and self-righteous about how they're the real liberals who have seen the light - but more worryingly it often seems it's thoughtlessly chucked at anyone on the left (or even center) to dismiss their opinion without addressing their point.

Hank Scorpio

alastair wrote: »

Like which reputable journalists?

Some examples below.

India Knight is a columnist for the Sunday Times with 150k followers.



Monica Rajesh who writes for the Telegraph and has written for the Guardian.



LA Times writer Steven Borowiec was fired after tweeting he wanted Trump to die and was subsequently fired.



http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/4/steven-borowiec-la-times-contributor-fired-after-t/

alastair

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Some examples below.

India Knight is a columnist for the Sunday Times with 150k followers.



Monica Rajesh who writes for the Telegraph and has written for the Guardian.



LA Times writer Steven Borowiec was fired after tweeting he wanted Trump to die and was subsequently fired.



http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/4/steven-borowiec-la-times-contributor-fired-after-t/

So two personal tweets from British journos with essentially zero US readership, and a freelance journo who tweeted, again in a personal capacity, before Trump was actually elected.

Nothing to support your actual claim then?

Reputable journalists on twitter calling for his assassination the night he was elected was more damaging than refuting the election results.

Hank Scorpio

You asked for examples and I gave, sorry to burst your bubble bub.

alastair

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

You asked for examples and I gave, sorry to burst your bubble bub.

You didn't. India Knight is an unknown quantity in the US.

Want to try again, this time actually backing up your claim with some evidence?

listermint

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

You asked for examples and I gave, sorry to burst your bubble bub.

No bubble burst.just more of the same , transparent

Hank Scorpio

listermint wrote: »

No bubble burst.just more of the same , transparent

Nope, just more of the same. He asks for links to reputable journalists tweeting about Trump's assassination and I provided them, then has to twist it to try and point score, which is incredible petty - but the norm round these here parts.

alastair

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Nope, just more of the same. He asks for links to reputable journalists tweeting about Trump's assassination and I provided them, then has to twist it to try and point score, which is incredible petty - but the norm round these here parts.

I'm twisting nothing.

Your claim:

Reputable journalists on twitter calling for his assassination the night he was elected was more damaging than refuting the election results.

And your proof of same? - zilch. A tweet, months after the election, in the UK from a journo nobody in the US knows. :rolleyes:

eire4

alastair wrote: »

I'm twisting nothing.

Your claim:


And your proof of same? - zilch. A tweet, months after the election, in the UK from a journo nobody in the US knows. :rolleyes:

As abhorrent as the idea is those people wishing it obviously don't know much about Mike Pence as he would be even worse IMHO given what a religious zealot he is.

marienbad

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Nope, just more of the same. He asks for links to reputable journalists tweeting about Trump's assassination and I provided them, then has to twist it to try and point score, which is incredible petty - but the norm round these here parts.

You are being unreasonable here , you stated that journalists called for his assassination on the night he was elected . That simply isn't true .

And just for argument sake lets say those three examples you have posted did happen on the night of the election it still wouldn't have made your point .

It is now possible to find people saying anything about anyone at anytime time with just a few simple searches , such is the explosion of 'media' sources . And both the left and right echo chambers are doing this continuously .

To most of us in the middle they are just discrediting their own arguments

KingBrian2

eire4 wrote: »

As abhorrent as the idea is those people wishing it obviously don't know much about Mike Pence as he would be even worse IMHO given what a religious zealot he is.

They don't know much about how elections work either. Assassinations is not how you change gvts. People voted for Trump to send a message now the far left and far right can exploit and use that message to suit their own agendas like stirring up religious discrimination or denouncing the President as a Tyrant simple for being elected.

MightyMandarin

KingBrian2 wrote: »

They don't know much about how elections work either. Assassinations is not how you change gvts. People voted for Trump to send a message now the far left and far right can exploit and use that message to suit their own agendas like stirring up religious discrimination or denouncing the President as a Tyrant simple for being elected.

The far right is Trump. He is stirring up religious discrimination.

KingBrian2

MightyMandarin wrote: »

The far right is Trump. He is stirring up religious discrimination.

Trump is a populist. He has many liberal positions. Many many liberal positions.

MightyMandarin

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Trump is a populist. He has many liberal positions. Many many liberal positions.

Doesn't mean he can't be far-right. His chief advisor is about as right-wing as you can find.

I see you neatly skirted past my point that he causes religious discrimination. Care to respond to that?

FA Hayek

Trump is not far right, as I mentioned in another post, do you really think a born and bred New Yorker living on the upper East side, is a secret member of the Klan or a Neo-Nazi?

People get upset when big nets are cast calling all left wingers/liberals SJW's or snowflakes, yet here far-right is a catch all term.

MightyMandarin

FA Hayek wrote: »

Trump is not far right, as I mentioned in another post, do you really think a born and bred New Yorker living on the upper East side, is a secret member of the Klan or a Neo-Nazi?

People get upset when big nets are cast calling all left wingers/liberals SJW's or snowflakes, yet here far-right is a catch all term.

Did I mention Neo-Nazi or KKK? I thought it was bad to bring those guys up when referring to people who happen to possess right wing views?

I'll call him far-right, fascist etc. because of the extreme similarities his reign has with fascist reigns in history, and the policies he's implemented and wants to implement. His chief advisor is also most certainly far-right, so why would he surround himself with people who clearly don't subscribe to similar ideologies?

He has some views supported by the left, but indeed so did fascist dictators in the past. It doesn't make him a liberal or a leftist.