See what I mean?

Actually, you were quite clear in your definition of "The Left":

To me, it's about what the Left represents, their policies, and what they would do if they got back in power .... the Democratic Party has morphed into just one more arm of the Left

The Democratic Party, Democratic voters, Democratic politicians, and no doubt a few RINOs thrown in for good measure. Your brush painting a picture of evil traitors out to destroy America is so broad it encompasses half or more of the population of the country. Imagine that, half of Americans, nearly 150 million people, are out to destroy their own home, tear it all down and turn it over to the Soviets and happily put on the yoke of slavery while singing the "Internationale" marching arm-in-arm to overrun the walls of Republican gated communities.

Are 150 million Americans crazy, or are you crazy? What are the odds?

I think you know better than that. You know damn well who I'm talking about, and where they are in Washington, our universities, our media, and our entertainment industry. You could name names as easily as I could.

Uh, no, sorry Senator McCarthy...er, Tom, I'm afraid I couldn't name names. I only know a relative handful out of that 150 million.

But that's a faithful impression of old Joe McCarthy. The sinister vagueness, the intimations of monsters lurking at the edge of vision, and the amount of innuendo packed into a few sentences is positively McCarthy-esque. You refer, of course, to the "fifth columnists", the Soviet moles inserted into academia and the press (all except Fox News, of course), and of course let's never forget all those Jews out in Hollywood, right? Time for another blacklist to put them back into their place, isn't it?

All the old scapegoats, reunited in euphemism once more.

I think it's fair to say that the fundamental issue most people to the left of you have with RightWingers is the constant smear campaign that underlies almost everything you say. It's not sufficient to just say you disagree with some idea, you routinely add insult by speculating about sinister motives and with ever-present thinly-veiled accusations of treason. It's not confined to groups or people recognizably "Leftist", Conservatives even attack moderation as "appeasement", as being "soft" on this that or the other thing. It's the language of extremism.

You're an extremist, Tom.