Dangerous Words: Left, Liberal, and the Language of Fear

Scrolling through Facebook one morning, I saw a post from a British tabloid. Its headline screamed about the “loony left.” The villains of the day? Students protesting racism on campus, councils debating whether statues of slave traders should still loom over our public squares, and striking workers daring to demand fair pay in a cost-of-living crisis. The framing was not subtle. The left wasn’t just wrong. The left was dangerous.

Later, another clip appeared in my feed this time from Fox News across the Atlantic. The anchor warned viewers that “liberals” were threatening America’s very survival. Not socialists, not radicals, not even communists just liberals. In the U.S., the word “liberal” itself has been turned into an insult. Different countries, different words. But the same tactic: take those who dissent, rename them as an existential threat, and repeat it until the public sees not people with ideas, but enemies at the gates.

To understand why the labels sting, we need to pause and define them.

• Left: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the left refers to “those holding liberal, socialist, or radical views in politics.” Historically, “the left” has been associated with equality, redistribution, and collective justice. Yet in Britain, tabloid headlines often reduce it to an insult: the “loony left” councils of the 1980s who supposedly cared more about symbolic battles than “common sense.”
• Liberal: In political theory, liberalism is rooted in individual freedoms, democracy, and rights. But in the U.S. context, “liberal” became shorthand for anyone supporting progressive taxation, universal healthcare, racial justice, or gender equality. In right-wing media, “liberal” is often spat out as a synonym for weak, out-of-touch, or morally corrupt.
• Fascism: Merriam-Webster defines it as “a political philosophy that exalts nation and often race above the individual, and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader.” Scholars like Robert Paxton (The Anatomy of Fascism, 2004) describe it as mobilising popular resentment through nationalism, scapegoating minorities, and glorifying violence. While politicians today rarely call themselves fascists, the rhetoric of fear and exclusion the idea that equality itself is a threat bears disturbing echoes.

Britain: The “Loony Left” and the Politics of Ridicule

The phrase “loony left” took root in the 1980s, weaponised by tabloids to discredit Labour councils who passed progressive policies. Fast-forward to the 2010s and 2020s, and the pattern is alive. When Bristol protestors pulled down the statue of Edward Colston a slave trader whose profits built parts of the city the right called it “mob rule.” When students backed Rhodes Must Fall at Oxford, headlines mocked them as hypersensitive, “woke warriors” unable to face history. When junior doctors, nurses, and teachers went on strike for fair pay, they were accused of “holding the nation hostage.”

In all of this, the language does heavy lifting. Calling protestors “woke mobs” shifts the story from injustice to disorder. Talking about “loony” councils reframes democratic decisions as irrational excess. The goal is not just to disagree, but to delegitimise.

And this matters now. With the rise of the Reform Party UK, founded by Nigel Farage and Richard Tice, the rhetoric has intensified. Reform positions itself as the antidote to both “soft Tories” and the “loony left.” In their 2024 campaign, they rail against “woke elites” supposedly controlling institutions. The left isn’t just wrong; it’s portrayed as un-British, a betrayal of common sense and tradition.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the word “liberal” has undergone a transformation. Once linked with John F. Kennedy’s optimism or the civil rights movement, it is now the punching bag of conservative media. Fox News, talk radio hosts, and MAGA politicians frequently warn that “liberals want to destroy America.”

During the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, peaceful protestors were branded “liberal anarchists.” Advocates for universal healthcare are “radical liberals” pushing “socialism.” Teachers who introduce inclusive curricula are framed as “liberal groomers.” The rhetorical sleight of hand is clear: add “liberal” in front of anything, and suddenly it becomes a threat to freedom, faith, and family.

Here, we also see the shadow of Christian nationalism, particularly within the MAGA movement. Pastors and politicians alike preach that liberalism is anti-Christian. Calls for LGBTQ+ equality are framed as attacks on religious freedom. Medicare expansion is framed as creeping socialism. The aim? To cast liberal policies not just as wrong-headed, but as morally dangerous corrupting the nation’s soul.

What unites the British fear of the “left” and the American fear of “liberals” is the target: equality. Calls for racial justice, gender justice, economic fairness, healthcare, housing these are reframed as threats to order, freedom, or tradition. And when those calls gain traction, the backlash grows sharper.

We can see this in the global rise of far-right parties. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s self-declared “illiberal democracy.” The labels shift, but the strategy remains: define your opponents as not just misguided, but as enemies of the nation.

In Britain, the Reform Party polls in double digits, shaping debate even if it doesn’t win power. The Conservatives adopt its talking points to survive. In the U.S., Donald Trump openly praises authoritarian leaders while promising retribution against “liberal enemies.” And ordinary people scrolling Facebook, watching the evening news are fed a steady diet of fear.

The words stick. They shape who we see as dangerous, who we see as ridiculous, and who we see as human. They decide whether a striking nurse is a hero or a traitor. Whether a protestor pulling down a slave trader’s statue is reclaiming history or destroying it. Whether calling for universal healthcare is compassion or communism.

Language matters. Because once people accept that “the left” or “liberals” are not just wrong but dangerous, the path to authoritarianism opens wide.

What’s striking in both Britain and the United States is that while politicians and media obsess over “left” and “liberal,” the word fascism is whispered, if mentioned at all. Yet the signs are there: the rise of authoritarian rhetoric, the scapegoating of migrants, the normalization of conspiracy theories, and the demonisation of entire communities. In Britain, the Reform Party has tapped into these anxieties, styling itself as the “common sense” alternative to what they call woke or weak leadership. In the U.S., Donald Trump’s movement has openly courted groups aligned with Christian nationalism and embraced the “MAGA” vision of returning to a mythic past.

Fascism doesn’t usually arrive wearing jackboots at first. It comes disguised as “ordinary concerns,” as “patriotism,” as “protecting values.” It shows up when strikes are painted as selfish, when antiracism is reframed as divisive, when queer and trans people are cast as threats to children. In Britain, this rhetoric is fed daily through tabloids; in the U.S., through Fox News and a constellation of right-wing platforms.

The irony is that while these movements warn that “the left” or “liberals” are a danger to democracy, the erosion of democratic norms comes most clearly from their own side: voter suppression in the U.S., the push for anti-protest laws in the U.K., the constant reframing of inequality as personal failure rather than systemic design.

These aren’t just words thrown around for sport. The language sets the frame for what counts as legitimate politics. If “liberal” is enough to make you an enemy of the state in America, and “left” enough to make you a national threat in Britain, then the bar for dissent has been pushed dangerously low. Today it’s students taking down statues or striking nurses under attack. Tomorrow it could be anyone asking why billionaires pay less tax than their cleaners.

Naming fascism matters because it breaks the illusion that this is simply about opinion or party politics. It reminds us that when politicians and media declare certain groups “dangerous,” they aren’t just debating ideas they are drawing up the lines of who gets to belong, who gets to dissent, and who gets to exist safely in public.

And it matters because we’ve seen this before. Europe in the 1930s, America in the McCarthy era, Britain during Thatcher’s war on unions. The terms shift, the scapegoats change, but the script is familiar: demonise, divide, then consolidate power.

The debate over “left” versus “liberal” isn’t a distraction it’s a signal. It tells us that democracy is being rewritten through language. And if we don’t pay attention, if we don’t challenge the frames, then fascism doesn’t need to march in. It will have already been invited.

You don’t need to sit in Parliament or Congress to hear how language shifts the air we breathe. It’s there in a neighbour muttering about “lefty students” while quoting the Daily Mail. It’s in the WhatsApp groups where “liberal” is shorthand for weakness. It’s in the casual dismissal of Black Lives Matter or climate protestors as dangerous extremists, while actual far-right marches are excused as free speech.

This is where the stakes become real. When everyday conversations adopt the frames set by politicians and media, the ground tilts beneath us all. It tilts toward division, toward suspicion, toward a world where belonging is conditional.

That’s why language matters not as an academic debate, but as a lived question of survival, safety, and democracy. And that’s why we must name fascism where it lurks, challenge the distortion of “left” and “liberal,” and remind ourselves that words are not neutral. They are the architecture of power.