I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the leftist/liberal distinction insisted on by many on this website, and what it means. For a long time I interpreted leftist-not-liberal as a muscular assertion of being further to the left than liberals. (1/10)

And I do think it’s that, at least in part. Some take it further and mean not only that they’re more to the left than liberals, but that everyone who isn’t leftist is a (neo?) liberal, up to and including the far right. “No difference between Dems and GOP” and all that. (2/10)

But I recently read Twilight of Democracy by @anneapplebaum and it crystallized some stuff for me. Her use of the word liberal in a global context, as in “liberal democracy,” made me look more critically at what some of the louder leftist-not-liberal voices were saying. (3/10)

I used to laugh a bit at folks like this and their unwillingness to do the work of building coalitions and convincing people to join their side. The way they seem to think that bullying and derision is the one true way to practice politics. (4/10)

But now what used to look like naïveté looks more like willful rejection of liberal democracy as a model. It puts into a new context the times they pine for a Tea Party from the left, or that they say “if Bernie had been given the nomination,” etc. (5/10)

The work of democracy is necessarily messy. We’ve watched Trump trample norms, and to this set, watching him act like a king or a despot has occasioned anger only that he’s not *their* king or despot. (6/10)

Biden wasn’t my guy in the primaries. I didn’t think he was up to the occasion. But everything he’s done since has convinced me more and more that he’s as up to meeting the challenges we face as anyone could be. (7/10)

But that won’t ever be good enough for leftists-not-liberals, because liberal democracy itself is one of the challenges, not a structure that must be preserved. Why convince people to put in a sprinkler system or add a wing when you think the house should be torn down? (8/10)

It’s why they’re so comfortable envisioning solutions that require as an assumption that republicans don’t exist and don’t hold any political power. But the assumptions necessary to get to *that* point are either utopian or grotesque. (9/10)

I don’t have a big closer to this, except to say that the most vocal of these types are never going to be valuable partners in a left coalition because they don’t believe in coalitions or in the bodies where coalitions form. (10/10)

And I should add, as I said above but didn’t emphasize throughout, I don’t mean to attack everyone who identifies as leftist. Just those gritting elements among them who have gained inexplicable prominence and preach a toxic blend of nihilism and dominance. (11/10)