monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

And rightist like to call liberals "leftists".

Don't you think it would be more constructive to cease the childish name-calling and blanket denunciations and argue the point on specific cases?

Leftists aren't liberals. They're leftists.

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed, and equality before the law.[1][2][3] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support limited government, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), capitalism (free markets), democracy, secularism, gender equality, racial equality, internationalism, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]

morphing Venn Diagram oceans

Of course Donald Trump trundled out in front of the cameras like a corpse on a Segway and announced: “We are with Saudi Arabia, we are staying with Saudi Arabia.” I honestly think that the Republican establishment is just coming to terms with how useful Trump is – realising that this troll-doll King Lear, who looks like something you’d pick off a baking tray after cooking pizza above it, can say the things that they themselves would like, or find useful to say, but can’t because of some vestigial attachment to decency. The Republicans’ current attitude to Trump is of turning a blind eye to your racist builder because you just need to get the conservatory finished.

Trump has not refashioned the GOP in his own image. He has achieved something more significant: he has managed to maintain a semantic distance from the Republican party despite cheerfully delivering its agenda. Meanwhile, the Democratic establishment has chosen to mirror his attachment to nepotism, entitlement and conspiracy theory – not that the conspiracy theory is necessarily invalid. Trump might, I suppose, be a Russian spy: it would certainly explain why he can’t speak English. It’s not that he’s normalising his own behaviour; it’s that, by comparison, he’s normalising that of dreadful people everywhere. Jared Kushner, a bloodless, lipless demon, a dependent clause of the Anti-Life Equation who could be thrown into any Edgar Allan Poe adaptation and trusted to improvise, looks merely emo in comparison.

The racial animus that Trump has cynically aggravated saw his supporters protesting Nike’s Colin Kaepernick advert in September. The Nike swoosh is now the sound their products make when they go on fire. One patriot filmed himself destroying his Nike clothing by cutting off the top couple of inches from his socks. Instead of destroying the clothing, he’s created an additional, free set of Nike sweatbands.

What does it say about our times that we’re expected to look for moral guidance to corporations like Nike, whose brand message of “Just do it” started out as a looped PA announcement in their Vietnamese trainer factory. I’ve always been wary of Nike – I think because their single tick logo is so reminiscent of the one used in my youth for Bob a Job: just a glimpse of a trainer and I’m back in short trousers, fibre-glassing that pensioner’s loft for a shiny 50 pence piece. (If you’re interested it was 10p for the insulating, 40p for wearing the shorts.)

Despite Trump’s rage, the taking-a-knee protests have continued. It’s odd, in most cultures going down on a knee is considered respectful: personally, I expect either a proposal or a medley of hits from Oklahoma. You have to hand it to the president; it shows a certain ambition to try to undermine the idea of protest in a country that was founded by, well, Protestants. Trump has tried to make this about respect for a flag I very much doubt he could draw from memory, and for military service that he studiously avoided.

Of course the NFL players are not actually protesting the flag. That would be as pointless as arguing with a sock, screaming at a table cloth, or a whole bunch of other stuff Trump probably does on a daily basis. The protest was originally about racial justice, and black people being shot dead by the police. You have to ask yourself how abusive a relationship has to be if even kneeling in silence is too provocative, how you are valued in a country where even the statement that your life matters ignites furious dissent.

There is an obvious misogyny to the Trump administration, and the president no doubt has many supporters whose idea of foreplay consists of dropping a rope ladder down a well. This was highlighted by the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the supreme court, despite a confirmation hearing where he unspooled like a Columbo villain, bellowing endlessly about his love of beer. Trump ordered an FBI probe during the hearing, an investigation that was concluded with the speed of an airplane edit of CSI Miami. An investigation that ranged from the FBI agent looking at himself in the mirror and noting that Judge Kavanaugh wasn’t at that moment raping him, all the way through to noting that he hadn’t raped anyone during his time on television being questioned by senators.

With Kavanaugh now on the bench, the irony for American women is that huge amounts of beer will soon become their only means of abortion. Should he be any kind of judge? There’s an argument that the very last thing you want to hand to any man accused of sex crimes is a hammer, but then again maybe we need his hands where we can see them. Still, it certainly is a very scary time for young men in America. Especially the ones aged 10 that Trump has put in cages.

and it's not a "leftist" president who has declared war against the free press.

who have restricted public officials from discussing climate change,

President Trump’s campaign has decided to purge some of its pollsters after a leak of dismal internal polls for the president that he denied existed.

Just two days before the president is set to kick off his bid for re-election, a top adviser said on Sunday that the campaign was cutting ties with three of its five pollsters to prevent further disclosure of survey data.

The polling showed Mr. Trump behind former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in several key battleground states, including by double digits in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The results were confirmed to The New York Times by advisers to Mr. Trump, but when they became public, he called them “fake polls.”

For days, aides to Mr. Trump have tried to figure out whom to point the finger at over the leak of the data, which jolted and infuriated the president. But in continuing to discuss it, aides violated a long-held unofficial rule of campaigns not to comment publicly on internal polling, even if the numbers leak.

The resulting furor led to an effort by the campaign manager, Brad Parscale, to tighten control. By removing several pollsters, the campaign hopes to shrink the circle of outside operatives who have access to information that could leak, according to the presidential adviser, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The rupture of the team came even as the president and his advisers were preparing for a large and elaborate rally in Orlando, Fla., on Tuesday night to formally open his campaign for a second term. Mr. Trump was hoping for a show of strength as Democrats had drawn increasing attention before their first debates on June 26 and 27.

The internal poll numbers, while not predictive, painted a bleak picture of the current state of the race for Mr. Trump, at least against Mr. Biden, when they were taken in March. They showed a number of critical states at risk — not just Florida and the Midwestern states, but even some longtime Republican bastions like Georgia. A Democratic state that Mr. Trump’s aides have insisted they want to put in play, Minnesota, appeared out of reach for the president.

The polling was reported on by The Times nearly two months ago without citing specific numbers. Last week, The Times reported that Mr. Trump had told aides to deny that such polls existed and to say that other data in the survey showed him doing well.

Some aides to the president appeared to be using the episode to undermine one of the president’s closest advisers, Kellyanne Conway, who was Mr. Trump’s final campaign manager in 2016 and is now his White House counselor. Her former firm, the Polling Company, was one of the ones to be ousted. Ms. Conway no longer has any formal ties to the company, which was sold in 2017 to CRC Public Relations, a well-known conservative advocacy firm.

In addition to Ms. Conway’s former firm, the Trump adviser said the campaign would cut ties with Adam Geller, a pollster for former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, and Michael Baselice, a pollster for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, both late additions to Mr. Trump’s campaign in 2016.

Judicial Watch: 'Fast and Furious' Gun Used in Paris Terror Attack

It looks to me as if you and your tribe are very selective when it comes to supporting free speech. It wasn't "leftists" who clamped a gag rule on organizations that supply reproductive choices to women,

it wasn't "leftists" who prosecuted Manning,

it wasn't "leftists" who have restricted public officials from discussing climate change,

and it's not a "leftist" president who has declared war against the free press.

Your "argument" is specious and just amounts to mislabeling any political views which you oppose, drawing a false distinction between economic leftists and people who are willing to allow and desire free speech.

As Lash points out, one can be both.

Obama ain't president now