Limousine liberal

Limousine liberal (also 'Limousine Left', 'Learjet Liberal', or 'Champagne socialist') is a pejorative American and Canadian political term for a wealthy liberal or liberal who claims to have a deep concern for poverty in the United States or poverty in Canada, but doesn't actually engage with impoverished individuals on a day to day basis. The idea is that they support progressive causes more at the intellectual level but are not generally involved in grass-roots organizing. They may contribute financially, however. The term can also carry the connotation of someone expressing concern for the poor and improving the environment who doesn't spend any considerable portion of their time or money to help.

Formation and early use

Democratic New York City mayoral hopeful Mario Procaccino coined the term to describe Republican Mayor John Lindsay and his wealthy Manhattan backers during a heated 1969 campaign. It was a populist epithet, carrying an implicit accusation that the people it described were insulated from all negative consequences of their programs intended 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 blacks over working-class whites.

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". 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."

Later use

In the 1970s, the term was applied to wealthy liberal supporters of open-housing and forced school busing who didn't . In Boston, Massachusetts, supporters of busing, such as Senator Ted Kennedy, sent their children to private schools or lived in affluent suburbs. To some South Boston residents, the liberals support of a plan that "integrated" their children with blacks and his apparent unwillingness to do the same with his own children, seemed like hypocrisy.

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. The Weekly Standard criticised 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." This term is also applied to those who support other liberal beliefs, such as gun control, but do not practice them themselves.

Recently, the New York Observer has applied the term to 2008 Democratic candidate John Edwards, because he once paid $400 for a haircut and, according to the newspaper, "lectures about poverty while living in gated opulence". [1]

A recent and related term is Lexus Liberal, which refers to leftists of the upper-middle class. Unlike the limousine variety, the term is usually used to deride a person's supposed lack of common sense concerning politics and society despite having completed some sort of higher education. "Lexus liberals" supposedly demonstrate naïve ignorance as opposed to hypocrisy.

Other countries

In Australia and New Zealand, a roughly equivalent insult of chardonnay socialist is used; in the United Kingdom the phrase champagne socialist or Bollinger Bolshevik is preferred, and in France such people are referred to as the gauche caviar ("caviar left"). In Portugal "Esquerda caviar" is used, basically a direct translation of the French term. In Germany "Toskana Fraktion" is used. In the United States, the synonymous phrases "latte liberal" and "lakefront liberal" are sometimes used. In Canada "White wine socialist" is sometimes heard, in Italy is used "radical chic".

In Peru, many of the formerly Maoists and Fidel Castro supporters, who had since renounced those views, worked in state agencies during the governments of Valentín Paniagua (2000-2001) and Alejandro Toledo (2001 - 2006) and had very high wages in comparison with the average population income; they were given the name of "Izquierda Caviar" or "Izquierda Rosa", terms similar to gauche caviar and parlor pink, respectively.

In the Netherlands, a near equivalent of "limousine liberal" would be "salon socialist". The point of a salon socialist, however, is not that he does not spend money charitably, but rather that he or she is not actively involved in the class struggle. Charity is seen as a capitalist and conservative project, because it leaves the alleged social structures of exploitation intact, and would even reinforce them (by making the poor dependent on the rich for charity). Charity also implies that mandatory taxation is not needed, or need not collect sufficient funds.

Note that in the United States and Canada, the usage of the term liberal differs from most of the world. In many countries outside the United States and Canada, "liberalism" refers to right-of-center politics, and particularly to support for laissez faire capitalism, or libertarianism. In contrast, in the United States and Canada, 'liberal' has a left-wing connotation and is sometimes used somewhat pejoratively, even by the mainstream media.

See also

• Elitism
• Liberal elite
• Chattering class
• Propaganda
• Champagne socialist
• San Francisco values