Guthrie, born into a family that was anything but leftist (and was even racist, according to many accounts), became the author of "hard-hitting songs for hard-hit people" – and America's alternative national anthem, This Land Is Your Land.
Business and political leaders, mass media and academics cultivated a paranoid anxiety among Americans: suspect anything even vaguely leftist, see risks of "subversion" everywhere, and avoid organizations unless religious or loudly patriotic.
Suggest you're anything but a leftist foodie social activist with a penchant for marijuana and workers' rights, and you'll be standing alone at the party sipping your flat, bitter, craft beer while everyone saves their eye-rolls for when you leave.
Pausing to talk complex geopolitics would have been impossible, and accusing America of being wrong about anything – as the leftists were doing a few blocks away – would have been offensive.
As the CEO of a Fortune 250 company - and an energy company no less - I am anything but a radical leftist.
Mr. Artaza emphasized that he was anything but a wild-eyed leftist, quoting Adam Smith and John Adams in support of his position.
"They did not say anything new," said Sally Moore, a leftist activist and member of the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth from Egypt's Coptic Christian minority.
Orozco was born in Jalapa, Veracruz, in 1962, into a leftist family that frowned on anything that had to do with the United States, including the English language.
Mr Singh's leftist parliamentary allies will balk at anything that smacks of toeing America's line, and especially of jettisoning close ties with Iran, an American priority.
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