Limousine liberal and latte liberal are pejorative U.S. political terms used to illustrate hypocritical behavior by political liberals of upper class or upper middle class status. The label stems primarily from unwillingness of limousine liberals to practice the views they purport to uphold, e.g. calling for the use of public transportation while frequently using privately-owned luxury transportation, especially by limousines or private jets in the case of the extremely affluent, [1] claiming environmental consciousness but driving fuel inefficient vehicles, or ostensibly supporting public education while sending their children to exclusive private schools with high tuition fees. [2]
Democratic New York City mayoral hopeful Mario Procaccino coined the term "limousine liberal" to describe incumbent Mayor John Lindsay and his wealthy Manhattan backers during a heated 1969 campaign. Historian David Callahan says that Procaccino:
conjured up an acid image of hypocritical wealthy dogooders insulated from the negative fallout of their bad ideas. This theme has remained a staple of conservative attacks ever since. [3]
It was a populist and producerist epithet, carrying an implicit accusation that the people it described were insulated from all negative consequences of their programs purported to benefit the poor and that the costs and consequences of such programs would be borne in the main by working class or lower middle class people who were not so poor as to be beneficiaries themselves. In particular, Procaccino criticized Lindsay for favoring unemployed minorities, ex. blacks and Hispanics, over working-class white ethnics. [4]
One Procaccino campaign memo attacked "rich super-assimilated people who live on Fifth Avenue and maintain some choice mansions outside the city and have no feeling for the small middle class shopkeeper, home owner, etc. They preach the politics of confrontation and condone violent upheaval in society because they are not touched by it and are protected by their courtiers". [5] The Independent later stated that "Lindsay came across as all style and no substance, a 'limousine liberal' who knew nothing of the concerns of the same 'silent majority' that was carrying Richard Nixon to the White House at the very same time." [6]
In the 1970s, the term was applied to wealthy liberal supporters of open-housing and forced school busing who did not make use of either of these themselves. [7] In Boston, Massachusetts, supporters of busing, such as Senator Ted Kennedy, sent their children to private schools and lived in affluent suburbs. To some South Boston residents, Kennedy's support of a plan that "integrated" their children with blacks and his apparent unwillingness to do the same with his own children, was hypocrisy. [8] President Carter was suspected of this in the later 1970s when he promised better conditions for people in New York City's South Bronx and Los Angeles's Watts when he visited these cities in respective 1977 and 1978 and none of these improvements happened.
By the late 1990s and early 21st century, the term has also come to be applied to those who support environmentalist or "green" goals, such as mass transit, yet drive large SUVs or literally have a limousine and driver. Sam Dealey, writing in The Weekly Standard , applied the term to Sheila Jackson-Lee for being "routinely chauffeured the one short block to work—in a government car, by a member of her staff, at the taxpayers' expense." [9] The term was also used disparagingly in a 2004 episode of Law & Order by Fred Thompson's character, Arthur Branch, to criticize the politics and beliefs of his more liberal colleague, Serena Southerlyn. South Park's creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone poked fun at the tendency of some liberals to be more concerned with image than actually helping the earth in the episode "Smug Alert!".[ citation needed ]
The New York Observer applied the term to 2008 Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards for paying $400 (equivalent to $590in 2023) for a haircut and, according to the newspaper, "lectures about poverty while living in gated opulence". [10] [11]
In 2009, the term was applied by some commentators to former Senate Majority Leader and then-Barack Obama cabinet appointee Tom Daschle for failing to pay back taxes and interest on the use of a limousine service. [12] [13]
Civil rights leader Al Sharpton used the term latte liberal to criticize (mostly white and high-income) left-leaning people "sit[ing] around the Hamptons" who advocated for the defund the police movement and ignored the concerns of African-Americans that suffer under high crime rates and rely on a strong police force. [14] [15]
Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. is an American civil rights and social justice activist, Baptist minister, radio talk show host, and TV personality, who is also the founder of the National Action Network civil rights organization. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election. He hosts a weekday radio talk show, Keepin' It Real, which is nationally syndicated by Urban One, and he is a political analyst and weekend host for MSNBC, hosting PoliticsNation.
Caffè latte, often shortened to just latte in English, is a coffee drink of Italian origin made with espresso and steamed milk, traditionally served in a glass. Variants include the chocolate-flavored mocha or replacing the coffee with another beverage base such as masala chai, mate, matcha, turmeric or rooibos; alternatives to milk, such as soy milk, almond milk or oat milk, are also used.
John Vliet Lindsay was an American politician and lawyer. During his political career, Lindsay was a U.S. congressman, mayor of New York City, and candidate for U.S. president. He was also a regular guest host of Good Morning America. Lindsay served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from January 1959 to December 1965 and as mayor of New York City from January 1966 to December 1973.
Champagne socialist is a political term commonly used in the United Kingdom. It is a popular epithet that implies a degree of hypocrisy, and it is closely related to the concept of the liberal elite. The phrase is used to describe self-identified anarchists, communists, and socialists whose luxurious lifestyles, metonymically including consumption of champagne, are ostensibly in conflict with their political beliefs.
Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There is a book by American conservative political commentator David Brooks. It was first published in 2000.
Gauche caviar is a pejorative French term to describe someone who claims to be a socialist while living in a way that contradicts socialist values. The expression is a political neologism dating from the 1980s and implies a degree of hypocrisy. The dictionary Petit Larousse defines left caviar as a pejorative expression for a "Progressivism combined with a taste for society life and its accoutrements". One description referred to it as "the free-thinking, authority-hating, individualistic, tolerant, socialist position... which shaded into a bohemian, existential, communitarian, fairly depressed" worldview espoused by people with money and good clothes.
Liberal elite, also referred to as the metropolitan elite or progressive elite, is a term used to describe politically liberal people whose education has traditionally opened the doors to affluence, wealth and power and who form a managerial elite. It is commonly invoked pejoratively, with the implication that the people who claim to support the rights of the working class are themselves members of the ruling classes and are therefore out of touch with the real needs of the people they say that they support and protect.
Robert Ferdinand Wagner II was an American diplomat and politician who served three terms as the mayor of New York City from 1954 through 1965. When running for his third term, he broke with the Tammany Hall leadership, ending the clubhouse's reign in city politics. He also served as United States Ambassador to Spain and in a number of other offices.
The mayor of New York City is elected in early November every four years, in the year immediately following a United States presidential election year, and takes office at the beginning of the following year. The city, which elects the mayor as its chief executive, consists of the five boroughs, which consolidated to form "Greater" New York on January 1, 1898.
The Badge Man is a figure that is purportedly present within the Mary Moorman photograph of the assassination of United States president John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Conspiracy theorists have suggested that this figure is a sniper firing a weapon at the president from the grassy knoll. Although a reputed muzzle flash obscures much of the detail, the Badge Man has been described as a person wearing a police uniform—the moniker itself derives from a bright spot on the chest, which is said to resemble a gleaming badge.
Mario Angelo Procaccino was an Italian-American lawyer, comptroller, and candidate for Mayor of New York City.
Melissa Mark-Viverito is an American Democratic politician and former speaker of the New York City Council from 2014 to 2017, as well as councilmember for the 8th district from 2006 to 2017, representing Concourse, Concourse Village, East Harlem, Highbridge, Longwood, Mott Haven, Port Morris, and Randall's Island.
The New York City mayoral election of 1997 occurred on Tuesday November 4, 1997, with incumbent Republican mayor Rudy Giuliani soundly defeating Democratic Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger and several third-party candidates. This was the first time Brooklyn voted for a Republican since 1941.
Bradford S. Lander is an American politician, urban planner, and community organizer who currently serves as the New York City Comptroller. A member of the Democratic Party, Lander is a progressive politician, and has been described as "one of the most left-leaning politicians in the city."
Lawrence Ettore Gerosa was an Italian-American politician who served as New York City Comptroller from 1954 to 1961.
New York City: the 51st State was the platform of the Norman Mailer–Jimmy Breslin candidacy in the 1969 New York City Democratic Mayoral Primary election. Mailer, a novelist, journalist, and filmmaker, and Breslin, an author and at the time a New York City newspaper columnist, proposed that the five New York City boroughs should secede from New York State, and become the 51st state of the U.S.
The 1969 New York City mayoral election occurred on Tuesday, November 4, 1969, with incumbent Liberal Party Mayor John Lindsay elected to a second term. Lindsay defeated the Democratic candidate, New York City Comptroller Mario Procaccino, and the Republican candidate, state senator John Marchi.
The 1965 New York City mayoral election occurred on Tuesday, November 2, 1965, with Republican Congressman John Lindsay winning a close plurality victory over the Democratic candidate, New York City Comptroller Abraham Beame.
The dirtbag left is a style of left-wing politics that eschews civility to convey a left-wing populist and anti-capitalist message using vulgarity. It is most closely associated with American left-wing media that emerged in the mid-2010s, such as the podcasts Chapo Trap House and Red Scare.
In the United States, "defund the police" is a slogan that supports removing funds from police departments and reallocating them to non-policing forms of public safety and community support, such as social services, youth services, housing, education, healthcare and other community resources. Activists who use the phrase may do so with varying intentions; some seek modest reductions, while others argue for full divestment as a step toward the abolition of contemporary police services. Activists who support the defunding of police departments often argue that investing in community programs could provide a better crime deterrent for communities; funds would go toward addressing social issues, like poverty, homelessness, and mental disorders. Police abolitionists call for replacing existing police forces with other systems of public safety, like housing, employment, community health, education, and other programs.
Mr. FARR: [...] What they're aiming for is a room where all the students are so invested in wanting to learn, they're monitoring themselves. And I had this wonderful experience in Houston one time, where there was a fifth-grade girl. She was doing some work in this classroom with an amazing teacher. And I crouched down by the girl and I asked her: Could you just tell me a little bit about what you're learning?
And she said: You know, could you ask me later? I'm kind of busy. [...]
BLOCK: She just didn't have time for you.
Mr. FARR: No, it was fantastic. I loved it.
(Soundbite of laughter)
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