About

"Regressive Left" is a political epithet used to pejoratively describe those within the liberal camp who advocate progressive values but also tolerate certain illiberal ideologies in defense of multiculturalism, most often in the context of radical extremism within Islam.

Origin

In July 2012, British political activist Maajid Nawaz introduced the term in his memoir Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism as an epithet for liberals who "pandered" to Islamist extremists under the guise of cultural and religious tolerance.

Spread

On October 1st, 2015, The Rubin Report YouTube channel uploaded an interview with Nawaz, in which they discuss the book Islam and the Future of Tolerance and the term "regressive left" (shown below, left). On October 2nd, comedian Bill Maher discussed the term with Richard Dawkins during an episode of the show Real Time with Bill Maher, and lamented the stifling of free speech on college campuses (shown below, right).

On November 18th, the Big Think YouTube channel uploaded an interview with Nawaz titled "Religious Tolerance Shouldn't Mean Accepting Lower Moral Standards," in which he describes the regressive left (shown below). On November 24th, author Sam Harris published an uncut version of his interview with the news site Salon, in which he criticizes "regressive leftists and Islamist apologists."^[4]

On December 9th, Dawkins posted a tweet accusing the "regressive left" of ignoring the presence of misogyny and homophobia in Islam (shown below). Within two months, the tweet gained over 1,700 likes and 1,200 retweets.^[1] The following day, a question asking about the label was submitted to Quora,^[5] to which the top reply listed the public figures Reza Aslan, Glenn Greenwald and Cenk Uyger as examppseudo-intelphilistineslistineslistines" that make up the regressive left. On December 18th, the /r/regressive_left subreddit was launched for discussions about the political label.

On January 4th, 2016, YouTuber Joseph Watson uploaded a video titled "The Truth About the Regressive Left" (shown below). On January 13th, Redditor xenoghost1 submitted a post complaining about the use of the term to the /r/GamerGhazi^[2] subreddit.

Search Interest

External References