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July 11th, 2017 
Awake Goy Nikil Saval of n+1 has an essay at the New York Times that seeks to redeem liberalism from attacks on left and right that have discredited it– as a gutless caving to corporate interests, or as government overreach. There are two basic problems with this piece.
First and more important is that Saval treats the hostility leftwingers feel towards centrist liberals as unfair. The weird thing is that he mentions some past issues, like Vietnam, but he doesn’t mention Iraq or Libya or Israel, and tie them together into the general critique that leftwingers justifiably have today of liberal interventionism and liberal hypocrisy on war and peace issues.
The same is true regarding the critique that says centrist liberals are tied too closely to corporations. The writer wants to make it seem like it is just nasty bullying without saying so explicitly. Though the headline says it; liberalism is “Mocked by the left.”
Secondly, Saval portrays liberals as innocent punching bags. As though liberals never attack people to their left. But the New York Times regularly attacks people to its left and rarely does the Times allow lefties a chance to make their case. And though it’s a while since I’ve read the New Republic or New York Magazine, I am sure that these liberal venues don’t give a voice to consistent anti-imperialists, let alone Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) proponents. The assault on pro-Palestinian activists is one obvious example of liberals viciously branding an entire movement as antisemitic. Hillary Clinton did that. Liberals either applauded or didn’t care. Bernie Sanders wasn’t much better.
The two false attacks blend together. Trivialize the issues at stake, then pretend that it is just a case of innocent liberals being viciously attacked by extremists on both sides.
After that, wait for the commenters to proudly proclaim their liberalism. This is the really depressing thing. One should expect the NYT to misrepresent issues, but there are plenty of readers who lap this stuff up and you see them in the comments.
Source Article from http://mondoweiss.net/2017/07/defense-liberalism-bullies/
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