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Limousine liberal andlatte liberal are pejorative U.S.political terms used to illustrate perceivedhypocritical behavior by affluent politicalliberals and other left-leaning people ofupper class orupper middle class status. Related terms areChampagne socialist, silver-spoon socialist, Mercedes Marxist, and Red Nobility.
DemocraticNew York City mayoral hopefulMario Procaccino coined the term "limousine liberal" to characterize incumbentMayorJohn Lindsay and his wealthyManhattan backers during a heated1969 campaign. HistorianDavid Callahan says that Procaccino:
conjured up an acid image of hypocritical wealthy dogooders insulated from the negative fallout of their bad ideas. This theme has remained a staple of conservative attacks ever since.[1]
It was apopulist andproducerist epithet, carrying an implicit accusation that the people it described were insulated from all negative consequences of their programs purported to benefit the poor and that the costs and consequences of such programs would be borne in the main byworking class orlower middle class people who were not so poor as to be beneficiaries themselves. In particular, Procaccino criticized Lindsay for favoring unemployed minorities, ex. blacks and Hispanics, over working-classwhite ethnics.[2]
One Procaccino campaign memo criticized "rich super-assimilated people who live onFifth Avenue and maintain some choicemansions outside the city and have no feeling for the smallmiddle class shopkeeper, home owner, etc. They preach the politics of confrontation and condone violent upheaval in society because they are not touched by it and are protected by theircourtiers".[3]The Independent later stated that "Lindsay came across as all style and no substance, a 'limousine liberal' who knew nothing of the concerns of the same 'silent majority' that was carryingRichard Nixon to the White House at the very same time."[4]
After theU.S. Supreme Court ruled againstschool integration delays inAlexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, formerAlabama GovernorGeorge Wallace denounced the court's decision and called the Justices "limousine hypocrites".[5] Wallace continued this line of attack when he ran for governor again in 1970, as Steve Fraser notes:
[H]e railed against "rich folks" in their country clubs and "big old houses" drinking "those martinis with their little fingers up in the air" who were calling for integrated schools. "And guess where their children go to school. They go to lily white private school. They've bought above it all."[6]
The New York Observer applied the term to2008 Democratic presidential candidateJohn Edwards who paid $400 (equivalent to $610 in 2024) for a haircut and, according to the newspaper, "lectures about poverty while living in gated opulence".[7][8]
Civil rights leaderAl Sharpton used the termlatte liberal to criticize (mostly white and high-income) left-leaning people "sit[ing] aroundthe Hamptons" who advocated for thedefund the police movement and ignored the concerns of African-Americans that suffer under high crime rates and rely on a strong police force.[9][10][11]
My working-class people, my homeowners, my tenants, my neighbors—they are not out there screaming and yelling, because they have to work.
Quotations related toLimousine liberal at Wikiquote