@HeadlessHorselessHorseman
In broad strokes you’re right, but more specifically it’s with regards to the
process, not personalities liberals who don’t care how ghoulish the politicians or people in the news are, as long as their ghoulishness is within the rules and protocols of whatever institution they’re a part of.
These are the people who shit all over Trump because he’s an asshole rogue, but love uncle George Bush Jr because despite all the worse things he did, at least he wasn’t an asshole and brought ‘honour’ to the institution of the president. They also don’t have solutions to people’s material concerns beyond what sounds good within the capitalist-corporatist paradigm, hence their focus on race and gender and not class.
They aren’t restricted to the US either, because the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada is Sorkinite liberalism on steroids, where anything good is half-assed and accommodating of capital, and anything bad done by the governments is handwaved away as “it’s completely legal!”
As for where I got the term,
it’s from my favourite podcast, Chapo Trap House, in their reviews of The West Wing and Jeff Newsroom and the News (Still waiting on the “wait, aren’t you some sort of libertarian? Why are you quoting and name-dropping a Marxist podcast?” or “I liked you better as a libertarian” comments) They’re the ones who clued me in to what I always felt was wrong with liberalism, but didn’t know how to explain it. It’s also why I use the terms “leftist” and “liberal” to refer to two separate political ideologies, unlike certain people I could name here.