# The "Far Left" is already being demonized **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 7, 2020, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994 "2020-11-07T17:53:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/361 "2020-11-10T20:43:37Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > If they’re gullible enough to be sold a bill of goods, doesn’t that mean they’re stupid? It amounts to the same thing. I’ve never equated the two. There are plenty of highly intelligent people who can be taken in by a sales pitch. Besides, as you can on this very thread there are people who are saying the term does not mean stupid, so I believe your contention no one understands it differently is not the case. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/362 "2020-11-10T20:44:17Z")
Is anti-choice also a dog whistle? ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/363 "2020-11-10T20:44:50Z")
What’s the “hidden meaning”? ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/364 "2020-11-10T20:45:55Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Willful ignorance is never to learn. Someone is willfully ignorant if they claim that the burns all over hands simply cannot be explained, even as they are clutching the hot stove. That sounds stupid to me. One of the definitions of stupid is “given to unintelligent decisions or acts **:** acting in an unintelligent or careless manner” ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/365 "2020-11-10T20:54:26Z")
The difference is, the willfully ignorant _do_ know better, they just claim not to. If you want to say that that is stupid, then go ahead. But it is not because the people themselves are stupid that they prefer to delude themselves into a different reality. ---
**Author:** ![Boudicca90](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boudicca90/32/16818_2.png) [@Boudicca90](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boudicca90)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/366 "2020-11-10T22:14:09Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > The far left, is the most vocal portion of the Dems, that doesn’t mean they need to be in lock step. They certainly aren’t a majority of the Democratic party so of course they aren’t going to do all the things the Far Left wants. Yep, we know we are still a minority within the party, which is why we have to be more vocal to advocate our issues when centrists try to shut us down. They have shown in the past how the Democratic establishment would rather ally themselves with the right and with Republicans rather their allies on the left when it comes down to it. So we have to increase our power and visibility even more, which we did this election while centrists floundered and anti-Trump Repub “allies” have shown their true nature. We aren’t going to be ignored and pushed aside anymore. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2020, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/367 "2020-11-10T22:42:32Z")
> [@Kearsen1](#): > > Is anti-choice also a dog whistle? No, it is not. But if you want to share why you think it is, I’ll be glad to talk about those thoughts. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/368 "2020-11-11T01:57:58Z")
Would the whole “dog-whistle” thing be best in a separate thread? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/369 "2020-11-11T02:03:32Z")
You are probably right. You have mentioned this a few times. I think it is time you went ahead and did that. 😀 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/370 "2020-11-11T02:04:32Z")
I think it’s a ridiculous conversation, and just want a way not to have to scroll past it so I can talk about the threat topic. But if it’ll help, I can start and abandon a thread on the ridiculous topic. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/371 "2020-11-11T02:08:53Z")
For a ridiculous topic it got a lot of mileage. If it bothers you as much as it seems to, and since no one else is doing it, you could start another thread. Although it seems to have run its course here…I think. I feel bad I started it but I didn’t think what I posted was so controversial (really…I had no idea and was surprised). My apologies. Frankly I am stunned to see anyone argue that dog-whistles in politics is not a thing. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/372 "2020-11-11T02:11:37Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I feel bad I started it but I didn’t think what I posted was so controversial (really…I had no idea and was surprised). My apologies. I don’t think you did anything wrong–it’s the “are dog whistles even real” part that’s silliness IMO. But if it’s run its course, that’s great. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/373 "2020-11-11T03:02:12Z")
> [@Boudicca90](#): > > Yep, we know we are still a minority within the party, which is why we have to be more vocal to advocate our issues when centrists try to shut us down. If I can speak hear as a centrist, I’m not trying to shut you down. I’m sure you can find some poster somewhere who said that Bernie should have been denied ballot access due to not being a long-term registered Democrat (not sure that’s even possible in Vermont). That would indeed be an effort to shut down. But that was rare. I want to have a choice of health insurers in a universal system – as in the Netherlands and Germany – not single payer. And political science evidence, that centrists tend (by a small margin) to win elections, seems to me convincing. Neither of these positions is, to use the thread title word, demonizing. Claiming that centrists want to shut you down – that seems to me a bit closer to demonizing than what centrists typically say about progressives. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/374 "2020-11-11T05:34:57Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Claiming that centrists want to shut you down – that seems to me a bit closer to demonizing than what centrists typically say about progressives. … except the centrists literally do want to shut progressive candidates down. Don’t say socialism. Don’t say Medicare 4 all. Don’t say defund the police. And even if you don’t say it we are still blaming you anyway. This is what the thread is all about. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/375 "2020-11-11T12:25:29Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > Don’t say socialism. Don’t say Medicare 4 all. Don’t say defund the police. I’m totally in favor of freedom of speech. And I’m in favor of a big tent Democratic Party. Are either of these ideas really unpopular among centrist Democrats? I agree with fewer prisons. Not with fewer police. Good police reform in nearby-to-me Camden New Jersey meant more care in hiring police, but also more police preventing crime. I’m on Medicare (along with another health insurance) and don’t consider Medicare one of the better universal health care models. As for Medicare for All that actually means single payer, I’m against that. Not against your right to advocate it – against the policy. But keep on advocating, and, hopefully, tweaking it, and maybe you will win me over. As for socialism, that word could mean a state-centralized economic system, or could mean European-normal neoliberal capitalist social democracy. As an ambiguous label, in the United States, it is politically toxic. [Check out this 2020 Gallup Poll](https://news.gallup.com/poll/285563/socialism-atheism-political-liabilities.aspx): % Yes, would vote for that person Black - 96% Catholic - 95% Hispanic - 94% Jewish - 93% Woman - 93% Evangelical Christian - 80% Gay/Lesbian - 78% Under 40 - 70% Over 70 - 69% Muslim - 66% Atheist - 60% Socialist - 45% A lot of people I tend to agree with politically, especially outside the United States, [identify as socialist](https://www.socialistinternational.org/). Tony Blair says he’s a socialist. But it wouldn’t be a wise label to use in a U.S. national election. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/376 "2020-11-11T13:01:16Z")
What centrists want is solidarity on things that actually have a chance at passing. Progressives are often pie in the sky oriented and they want massive sweeping change. The world (and the politics of it) doesn’t work like that. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/377 "2020-11-11T14:54:55Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Oh wait, Trump did better with African Americans and Latinos. Maybe we should actually try to figure out why? Because black and Latino voters aren’t as monolithic as you wish they were? Because some blacks and Latinos were worried that the Democrats wanted to eliminate police and other wacky fringe-far-left crap? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/378 "2020-11-11T15:02:41Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > Because some blacks and Latinos were worried that the Democrats wanted to eliminate police and other wacky fringe-far-left crap? . Or maybe it is because Black are tired of being told that getting the police to treat them the same way it treats everyone else is “wacky fringe-far-left crap”. Interestingly from my research, in polls Blacks support BLM very strongly but not Defund the Police (although they DO support radical overhauls of the way police works). That probably deserves its own thread but in short it makes me sympathetic to the argument that Defund the Police isn’t a great slogan; support for it is low even though support for what it actually means to most I’ve heard use it is high. That sounds like a problem with the slogan. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/379 "2020-11-11T15:29:48Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Defund the Police isn’t a great slogan It’s a terrible slogan. It should be ‘Fix the Police’, or ‘Reform the Police’, or ‘Rebuild the Police’. Something that doesn’t suggest that there should be no police. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994/380 "2020-11-11T15:37:24Z")
The point is that we shouldn’t reform the police to tackle all the problems they have now; we should limit the scope of problems handled by police, reform the way they respond to those problems, and create other agencies to respond to other sorts of problems that are currently handled by cops. I agree that Defund doesn’t capture all of that. I don’t know that any of yours do, either. But I don’t know that there IS one word we can plug into “blank the police” that fits the mold. Maybe our society’s focus on slogans and headlines is part of the issue. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-far-left-is-already-being-demonized/924994.md?page=20)