>Reflecting on what he called “the woke identity,” Freddie DeBoer observed a tendency among some leftists to forcefully reject the work of persuasion.... “A fundamental, structural impediment to liberal political victory is that their preferred kind of moral engagement necessarily limits the number of adherents they can win....”

The American conflation of 'liberal' with 'leftist' is infuriating.

Republicans have twisted the discourse surrounding these concepts so artfully that even many liberals earnestly believe that they're the same thing — that support for legalised cannabis or simply higher taxes makes them 'far left', that vague lip service given to the most milquetoast variety of feminism is 'radical', that subsidised university tuition is 'socialism', &c. Conversely, it's not uncommon to hear (in the context of recent university protests for example) communists and anarchists being referred to as 'liberals'.

It's politically ignorant nonsense and i think it's illustrative of the way that conservatives in the US control the parameters of any given issue. And i feel like that should be one of the biggest factors in any discussion of the prospects for 'the left'.