Rallies graced by telegenic Salafist preachers attracted tens of thousands, while a curious few listened politely to youthful leftists talking up revolution.
Brazil has hidden behind Mercosur, a regional block that has dwindled into a leftist talking-shop, and the moribund Doha round of world-trade talks.
George Will, hardly a leftist, talks in his columns of a "systemic crisis of capitalism".
And by stressing the value of Congress in improving legislation and saying it should be the place to approve the new constitution she plans to draw up, she is tacitly disavowing the leftist talk of "refounding" the country that has business people so worried.Ms Bachelet likes to say that her proposals for democratic change are the last chance to avoid a lurch to populism.
When a leftist talks, wealth means greed, masculinity means sexism, pride means racism, traditional values means homophobia, and rural America means a bunch of idiots.
"Leftist political ideology, talking about the day-to-day – it's written from a solipsistic standpoint, about 'my existence'.
Leftists who talk about corporate domination fail to see that most companies hate controversy.
Now, with the country's top vote-getter, the leftist firebrand Alexis Tsipras, talking more and more about nationalizing companies and industries and, in the words of his top economic adviser, "taxing the rich," there is even more incentive to lie low.
Leftist activists have been talking about demonstrating outside the convention hall.
Salon's Alex Koppelman points out that some on the Right have managed to Alice-in-Wonderland this into yet another anti-liberal talking point: "Leftists in the state-run media are lambasting Brit Hume for promoting Christianity on a Sunday morning talk show," Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft complained.
