Why Is Liberalism a 'Bad' Word for the Right? If liberalism has become a bad word for the Religious Right, there must be some virtues in the concept and practices of the ideology. Illustration: The Wire Society14/Jan/2021 I have been attracted to critical theory all my life, and never dreamt that I would be compelled to defend liberalism, as I intend to do in this piece. Oddly, a philosophy that has been dismissed by the radical Left as tame and status-quoist, has become a term of abuse in the hands of the religious Right. âLutyens Delhiâ, the âKhan Market gangâ, and âUrban Naxalsâ are contemptuously dismissed as ‘libtards’. The mind boggles. What on earth is the meaning of libtard? The word is clumsy at best and incoherent at worst. The wider question is – why is the Right so scared of liberalism?Â