Can't comment on your friends. Still, three possibilities spring to mind. 1) Liberals who conflate being "on the left" with being a "leftist." This is becoming a smaller and smaller group, though, as there are now several left voices not named Chomsky or West that can't be completely ignored in mainstream discourse. True liberals hate th…
Can't comment on your friends. Still, three possibilities spring to mind. 1) Liberals who conflate being "on the left" with being a "leftist." This is becoming a smaller and smaller group, though, as there are now several left voices not named Chomsky or West that can't be completely ignored in mainstream discourse. True liberals hate these people, as you should know. For them, this hate is as definitional as is seeing Biden's win as a "great victory." 2) People on the right who conflate "liberal" and "leftist" out of ignorance, laziness or convenience, i.e., most likely these friends of whom you speak aren't leftists or, if they identify as such, aren't very well informed. 3) Those suffering a reflexive need to evince optimism, which is a peculiarly American disease.
Can't comment on your friends. Still, three possibilities spring to mind. 1) Liberals who conflate being "on the left" with being a "leftist." This is becoming a smaller and smaller group, though, as there are now several left voices not named Chomsky or West that can't be completely ignored in mainstream discourse. True liberals hate these people, as you should know. For them, this hate is as definitional as is seeing Biden's win as a "great victory." 2) People on the right who conflate "liberal" and "leftist" out of ignorance, laziness or convenience, i.e., most likely these friends of whom you speak aren't leftists or, if they identify as such, aren't very well informed. 3) Those suffering a reflexive need to evince optimism, which is a peculiarly American disease.