Mediaboss Marketing

Throughout centuries and across continents, thepolitical meaning of liberalism has evolved to represent a very different set of principles than it once did.

Researchersdetermined the first time theterm "liberal" wasused in a political manner was around 1769 by Scottish economist Adam Smith, who applied the word to discussions about trade as well as policy.To believe in liberal principles, for Smith, was to strive for natural libertyor the right for any person to pursue their own interests as long as they stayed in the lines of the law.Today in America some are proud to call themselves liberal while others attach negative connotations to the word. Supporters of modern liberalism believe it representsthe want for government to assist in political and social change, but critics of liberalism often feel it is a threat to their own way of life.

Stacker ranked each state first by the percentage of residents who identify as liberals and then by the percentage of the state's voters who voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, using data from Gallup, 270toWin, and the Cook Political Report's 2020 National Popular Vote Tracker.

While the war between conservatives and liberals has long been active in the U.S., it was glaringly apparent throughout the Trump administration. Misinformation, a common theme that began during former President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and persisted through his four years in office, painted a particularly negativepicture of liberalsfor Trump supporters.Fromasserting the COVID-19 crisis was all a rouse to get Trump out of office to declaring protests in Philadelphia after the police killing of Walter Wallace Jr. werethe most recent consequence of the Liberal Democrats war against the police,liberals were essentially declared public enemy #1 by the Trump administration. Trump did not create the divide between political parties but he did help to inflame the longstandingcontentious relationship.

Continue reading to find out how many liberals there are in every state post-Trump, beginning with the state with the least liberals in the U.S.

You may also like: States with the most conservatives

View post:
States with the most liberals | National and World | dailylocal.com - Daily Local News

It was mostly unforeseen, the sudden sense of exultation and exhalation mingleda surging heart matched by a good, deep breaththat the Inauguration produced in so many. Even Bernie Sanders felt it, telling Seth Meyers that he wept with pleasure, in his now famous full-granddad getup, at the installation of the new President. Everyone suddenly burst out singing, the British Great War poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote about another memorable day of transition, Armistice Day, in 1918, and people burst out singing on this occasion, too, from Lady Gaga and J. Lo during the ceremony, masks cautiously off and spirits high, to Bruce Springsteen being so entirely, gravelly Bruce at night. That feeling of release made some a little reluctant to go back into evaluating the immediate past; having awoken from a bad dream, youre disinclined to want to spend too much time remembering all its elements. The sense of a new beginning is, of course, being exploited by the Trumpite rightlets move on, shall we, and just pretend that that violent insurrection thing didnt happenbut, even among those purer of heart and purpose, there is a properly sensed virtue in forgetting.

But it still seems worth making an inventory of our own anticipations and predictionsto open an inquiry into what those on the liberal side of the argument got right and what they got wrong about the fate of democracy over the course of the past four years. Like a lot of others, I got loud about what liberalism was and ought to be. I even wrote a book, intended as a kind of letter to my daughter, about what seemed to me its enduring values; not those of neo-liberalism, as its sometimes called, meaning the ideology of fanatic free-marketers, or of classic liberalism, which also often means the ideology of fanatic free-marketers, but a defense of the liberal humanist traditionwhich, to be sure, scoffers think is another name for the ideology of fanatic free-marketers, but isnt. That tradition descends as much from Montaigne as from Montesquieu, rooted in a view of human fallibility as much as in any faith in bicameral legislatures and checks and balances. Since the mid-nineteenth century, it has been a movement that, uniquely, sees a desire for egalitarian reform and a push for personal liberty as two faces of the same force; a movement for an ever-broadening sphere of personal freedom to love whom we like and to say what we think, and for an ever-larger insistence on erasing the differences between people and giving the same rights to all sexes and colors and kinds.

The first lesson, and vindication, for those of that liberal turn of mind is the continuing demonstration of the superiority, both moral and pragmatic, of pluralism to purism. That truth has been demonstrated twice by that improbable liberal hero Joe Biden, first in the Democratic primaries and then in the general election. There was an extended moment, in 2018 and 2019, when a dominant belief on the left was that the only way to counter the extreme narrowness of Trumpism was with an equally pointed alternative. Bernie Sanders, whose values and programsMedicare for All, breaking up the banks, a Green New Dealhave long appeared admirable to many, still seemed to rest his campaign on a belief that one could win the Democratic nomination without a majority, as long as the minority was sufficiently motivated and committed, and as long as the rest of the field remained fragmented.

But the inflamed flamed out. Biden, despite his uninspiring social-media presence and his generally antediluvian vibe, shifted, like his party, to the left, yet managed to pull together a broad coalition to win the nomination, and then did it again against Donald Trump. The pluralism of that coalition stretched from its base, among African-American women, to those suburban white women who turned on Trump, to disaffected McCain Republicans, in Arizona, to Latinoswho, warningly, in some areas voted less Democratic than in the past, but still voted Democratic. (And not to forget those neocon Never Trumpers who seem to have played a small but significant role in turning key votes in key places.) It was a classic liberal coalition: many different kinds with a single shared goal. Sanders, by the way, is, in a manner, still insufficiently celebrated as a hero of that coalition: with Biden, he co-led unity task forces, to keep his followers in the fold; never flinched in his support; and refused to play the diva-ish part that many in his train might have wanted, even whenas when Biden occasionally scorned the socialists he had beatenhe must have had to bite his arm to stay silent. This solidarity, to use the old-fashioned lefty phrase, was rooted both in his obvious affection for Biden and in his ability to grasp a set of priorities: winning the nomination for his own causes would have been terrific; defeating Trump for the countrys cause was essential.

The second, complementary idea vindicated by Bidens election is that whats often deprecated as centrism is simply a radicalism of the real. Biden arrives as a conciliator and a healer, a family man of faith unafraid to speak of faith. But, after four years of chaos and the catastrophe of the pandemic, he also has presented the most progressive platform of any President in American history since F.D.R. He can be both at once, because he lives, like most people, a life replenished by a plurality of identities. His victory was made possible by monthsyears, reallyof unglamorous work by activists in registering voters and overcoming disincentives and building a base capable of action. Anyone who was on the phone with those who were on the phone with people in Georgia and Michigan and the other key states knows how hard they worked, not at the macro level of ideological certainty but at the micro level of pragmatic persuasion. It was, as liberal triumphs always are, achieved by thinking of the world in terms of many individual parts, not a single ideological whole.

The election was a vindication of the view that the strength of liberal democracy lies only in the strength of liberal institutions, those intermediate repositories of social trust without which mere elections mean nothing. One saw their strength most movingly, perhaps, with the resistance of those Georgia Republican electoral officials to Trumps outrageous interference. Their integrity was not manifest in a set of melodramatic gestures of the kind that J.F.K. wrote about in his once famous (and partly ghostwritten) book Profiles in Courage. It manifested itself in a set of commitments to established, democratic, bureaucratic procedures: stick to these rules, because these rules are fair, even if your side is losingthats as much the sound of freedom as any clarion call.

What did liberals miss and get wrong? Above all, perhaps, the single most important thing: that no matter how hard you try to properly gauge the power of the irrational in human affairs, you can never estimate it adequately. What stirred the insurrectionist mob to storm the Capitol was primarily Trumps lies, but also, in some cases, theories and beliefs that were not only difficult to credit but difficult even to narrate. The QAnon theory of the world isnt just alarmingly incoherent but completely implausible, and yet it motivates some to be willing to kill and be killed. It is always hard for the liberal imagination to imagine fanaticism adequately, and that is one of its failures. Liberalism persists in the insistence that extreme irrationalities of nationalism and ethnic tribalism can be placated by this economic policy or that new bill. They cant. Such grievances are an independent and self-regenerating force in human affairs as powerful as any other that can be combatted but never entirely cured.

Yet, perhaps most important, what liberals got very right very early was to see how wrong Trump was. Many saw in 2016 what culminated in January of 2021: that Trump was an implacable enemy of democracy itself; that if Trump came to power America would never fully recover. And, indeed, the damage done may be even more grievous than we can yet understand, much less accept. The moral accountancy of the Trump years has hardly begun, and a failure of the new Administration to do its work could lead to the revival of Trumpism, if not of Trump himself, in a form more ferocious than the form just passed. But, for the moment, we breathe, and sing, and hope.

See the original post here:
What Liberalism Can Learn from What It Took to Defeat Donald Trump - The New Yorker

OTTAWA The federal Conservative party raised substantially more money than the governing Liberals last year, as new Elections Canada figures show the Official Opposition has been filling its coffers ahead of a potential election this year.

The Conservatives ended 2020 with a major surge in donations in the final quarter, while the Liberals also drummed up more contributions in the last three months of the year.

The Conservatives raised $7.7 million from about 46,000 donors between October and December, according to Elections Canada, while the Liberal party says it drew in $6.5 million from some 48,000 donors.

The contributions roughly doubled the Liberal party's third-quarter sum, marking its best-ever quarter outside of an election year and its most lucrative fourth quarter on record but not enough to make up for a year of lower figures.

The Liberals raised about $15.1 million in 2020 compared to the Conservatives' $20.7 million, according to totals submitted to Elections Canada.

The Conservatives held a leadership race last year, but parties of all stripes have also been ramping up their fundraising efforts amid growing speculation about a federal election before the year is out.

"While other parties have pushed for an election, the Liberal party's focus is to do everything it takes to keep Canadians safe and supported through this global crisis and that will continue to be the case," Liberal spokesman Braeden Caley said in an email.

The comments come as all parties start to lay the ground work in ridings across the country, including with candidate recruitment and green-light committees for vetting would-be nominees.

Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole said last week the party's healthy cash haul during his first six months at the helm were proof his focus on the economy and job creation is resonating.

"The Liberals can focus on keeping their own jobs, Conservatives are focused on securing yours," he said last week in a statement.

Meanwhile the NDP says it raised $2.5 million in the final three months of 2020, allowing it to pay off the last of its campaign debt.

The windfall last quarter makes up more than 40 per cent of the $6.1 million raised by New Democrats throughout 2020.

The party says it still has more than $1 million in its coffers after slaying the hefty $10-million debt from its 2019 election campaign.

The Bloc Qubcois registered more than $961,000 in contributions from less than 1,000 donors between October and December, and $1.6 million throughout 2020.

The Green party says it raised $1.4 million in the fourth quarter, and $3.5 million for the whole year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 1, 2021.

View original post here:
Conservatives beat Liberals in 2020 fundraising race as both parties ramp up efforts - Kamloops This Week

Ahead of a federal election tipped for the second half of 2021 Mr Kelly, first elected in 2010, could face another challenge from would-be Liberal candidate Kent Johns to retain pre-selection for the seat.

Mr Johns, a Liberal moderate, has previously planned to stand against Mr Kelly but interventions from three successive prime ministers Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and then Scott Morrison have blocked him.

At the same time a ginger group of local activists, We Are Hughes, are also searching for a candidate to stand against Mr Kelly.

Former NSW Liberal Party vice-president Kent Johns.Credit:Chrisopher Lane

Local Liberals the Sun-Herald and Sunday Age spoke to expect Mr Johns to stand against Mr Kelly, barring an intervention from Liberal Party head office. Former Sutherland Shire mayor Carmelo Pesce, who has also been discussed as a potential candidate, is said to be unlikely to throw his hat in the ring.

A NSW Liberal MP, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity so they could discuss internal party deliberations, said it was unlikely the prime minister would again intervene to save Mr Kelly, who is said to lack the rank-and-file numbers to win preselection this time.

Loading

It should be a normal preselection. Hes never had the numbers other than when he was first pre-selected, the MP said.

People have become immune to what he says on climate change, its just Craig being Craig, but his comments on the Capitol riots [in Washington DC] shocked people.

His comments on COVID-19 are really damaging, its like having Pete Evans in the party room.

Mr Evans is a celebrity chef who has questioned the efficacy of mask wearing and vaccines. His Facebook page was deactivated last year for sharing misinformation about COVID-19.

Loading

Mr Kelly said that every MP had to re-apply for their job at every election. Since Ive been outspoken defending traditional Liberal party values there is no doubt that many from the green left will try and run a targeted campaign against me.

Another Liberal familiar with the partys internal discussions about Hughes said Mr Kellys outspoken ways and frequent posting of fringe medical theories - the MP often posts three or four times per day to his nearly 90,000 followers on the topic - had angered not just the moderate faction but also sections of the partys centre right and hard right factions.

No one knows why he is doing what he is doing.

Mr Kelly described the We Are Hughes group as fake independents - they are the remnants of the Greens that see their best chance as trying to trick the electorate by disguising themselves as independent.

But Linda Seymour, one of the organisers of the group, said it was a grassroots movement focused on on doing politics differently. They hope to find a strong candidate, similar to independent MP Zali Steggall who managed to unseat Mr Abbott in Warringah at the 2019 federal election.

In Hughes we have no representation, we have Craig Kelly off on his own crusade. Irrespective of whether youre Labor or Liberal you havent been represented in our seat, she said.

Pre-selection for NSW Liberal Party lower house seats has not yet begun.

Our Morning Edition newsletter is a curated guide to the most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up to The Sydney Morning Heralds newsletter here, The Ages here, Brisbane Times here, and WAtodays here.

James Massola is political correspondent for the Sun-Herald and TheSunday Age, based in Canberra. He was previously south-east Asia correspondent, based in Jakarta, and chief political correspondent.

Read this article:
Pete Evans in the party room: Liberals, independents line up to take on Craig Kelly - Sydney Morning Herald

PARIS He was the boy wonder of Western politics in 2017, soaring above outmoded cleavages between left and right. He was the whip-smart former banker who was going to turn a tradition-bound society into a start-up nation. He was the liberal bulwark against rising populism in Europe an anti-Trump.

But with an eye on his next election, President Emmanuel Macron has tacked to the right, alienating former supporters and current members of his own party.

An often incoherent handling of the coronavirus pandemic has dinted Mr. Macrons competent image. And after three recent Islamist terrorist attacks in France, Mr. Macron has pushed forward bills on security and Islamist extremism that have raised alarms among some French, the United Nations and international human rights groups.

A malleable politician who came out of the left, Mr. Macron has always been known as a shape-shifter. His slide to the right, underway for at least the past year, has picked up steam in recent months and is regarded by some as a clean break from the first three years of his presidency.

Today, we see clearly that its an altogether different Emmanuel Macron, said Pierre Rosanvallon, a professor at Collge de France who specializes in French democracy. How do we understand this change?

Saying that his policies have been misunderstood, Mr. Macron has lashed out at his critics. In a recent interview with Brut, a youth-oriented online news site, Mr. Macron was asked whether he was concerned that his international image had changed from that of a modern, liberal president to an authoritarian president.

When youve read all that Ive read about me, in France or abroad, you dont feel anything anymore, Mr. Macron answered. I dont care.

With Frances parties on the left in a shambles, Mr. Macrons main challenger in the 2022 presidential election is once again expected to be Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally. Mr. Macron is chasing an electorate that has been moving right: An analysis by a market research company, OpinionWay, showed that his party, La Rpublique en Marche, has lost substantial support among left-leaning voters, and gained on the right.

If recent polls show that the move right has helped him, his supporters argue that his new positions on sensitive issues like police violence, secularism or Islamism simply reflect growing threats. A spokeswoman for Mr. Macron did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Franois Patriat, a French senator and longtime supporter of Mr. Macron, said the president had evolved on a variety of doctrines including security and the defense of Frances model of secularism following confrontation with the reality on the ground.

Others, like Mr. Rosanvallon, say Mr. Macron who served as the economy minister under the previous president, Franois Hollande had a clear agenda on economic matters in 2017, but only partially formed stances on social issues.

Mr. Macron was elected president in 2017, at age 39, in unusual circumstances: Mr. Hollande chose not to run for a second term, and the campaign of the leading candidate, from the right, imploded over a financial scandal.

Three years into his presidency, Mr. Macron has hewed to pledges to make the economy more competitive by overhauling labor laws and reducing taxes, said Jean Pisani-Ferry, an economist and former close adviser to Mr. Macron.

The presidents fiscal policies have helped most economic groups, Mr. Pisani-Ferry said, though he acknowledged that the benefits were greater for the wealthy, who had been taxed heavily under Mr. Hollande. Though Mr. Macron has been criticized in France as the president of the rich, increased spending to defuse the Yellow Vest protests and to respond to the coronavirus pandemic has had the effect of helping lower- and middle-income French, he said.

Mr. Macron recently unveiled a 100 billion euro, or $122 billion, stimulus plan to save jobs and businesses at risk because of the pandemic.

An increasing number of early supporters say that a lack of real follow-up on Mr. Macrons initially progressive social vision reducing inequality, empowering Frances disadvantaged minorities, focusing on the social causes of crime or Islamist extremism have left them disillusioned.

The initial promise on the ability and willingness to transform society and to be progressive is betrayed, Guillaume Chiche, a lawmaker who left Mr. Macrons party last May, adding, Emmanuel Macron is a shooting star that is dying out.

Mr. Chiche is among 36 lawmakers who have left Mr. Macrons group in the lower house of Parliament for political reasons, depriving him of an outright majority last May. Most quit in protest against Mr. Macrons rightward tilt.

The break to the right became clearer in recent months as Mr. Macron and Frances other political leaders began staking out positions ahead of the next presidential election, in April 2022.

In a reshuffling of his cabinet, Mr. Macron replaced his left-leaning interior minister with a hard-liner, Grald Darmanin. Adopting the language of the far right, Mr. Darmanin pledged to bring order to the country even though the governments own statistics show that crime isnt going up.

Given free rein by the president, Mr. Darmanin has led efforts to push forward a security bill that has been widely condemned, and he has conflated Muslim practices with the governments crackdown on Islamism.

Pierre Person, a lawmaker who stepped down as deputy chief of Mr. Macrons party in September, said Mr. Darmanins high-profile push on security was a disavowal of Mr. Macrons socially liberal promise.

It is perhaps on one of Frances most politically charged issues the secularism separating state and religion, known as lacit that Mr. Macrons transformation has been most profound. In the past, he often expressed skepticism about a strict application of that secularism, which critics say is a way to restrict Muslim religious expression.

A few years ago, Mr. Macron denounced a radicalization of lacit and warned against a vengeful lacit used as a weapon against Islam. But he has made a full-throated defense of secularism since the recent attacks following the republication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

The shift has pleased people like Dominique Schnapper, a sociologist and president of the Council of the Wise, a group created by the education ministry in 2018 to reinforce the secular doctrine in public schools.

He understood a few months ago, Ms. Schnapper said of the presidents position on secularism. But for the first three years of his mandate, he didnt talk about it. He didnt want to listen.

Even as Mr. Macrons ideas continue to take shape during his presidency, his lack of political competence has undermined his ability to push forward his goals, said Mr. Rosanvallon, the historian, citing as an example the current security bill that has caused a crisis because of a provision restricting the filming of police officers.

At the same time, the inconsistency between his words and his actions has led to mistrust, Mr. Rosanvallon said.

You can make an assumption on someones future behavior if his past actions and behavior show consistencies in which you can place your trust, he said. But thats whats missing now.

Read this article:
Macron, Once a Darling of Liberals, Shows a New Face as Elections Near - The New York Times