I can’t remember which book it was, but I remember reading that there was allegedly a more liberal faction within the CIA at one point that was at odds with the conservative faction, but not sure how much truth there is to that.

I think since around the time the patriot act was passed (?) the president has appointed the director, so the CIA is generally going to align with the sitting president’s politics. The director Trump chose to lead the CIA for his second term previously attempted to pass a bill to get rid of the Chevron deference while he was a congressman in TX.

The bill failed, but SCOTUS conveniently overturned Chevron in 2024. Which means less federal oversight for Chevron and other corporations now that Trump is in office. The CIA, under Trump’s director has now invaded Venezuela and overthrown Maduro, which will allow more profits for Chevron (before the invasion they had an agreement that allowed the Venezuelan government the majority of their profits) and the CIA is establishing a permanent base in Venezuela.

I doubt the CIA was ever doing ultra wholesome shit under Obama or Biden, but going to war and invading foreign countries for oil seems to be standard conservative policy in the same vein as the Bush/Cheney legacy.

There’s also claims the CIA infiltrated the Frankfurt school to intentionally craft a new form of liberalism that was opposed to communism. I don’t really know the full story behind the theory (I do want to read more about it). I do know that if a purely conservative CIA had been attempting to covertly overtake and pervert a liberal movement via the Frankfurt school, it would very much be at odds with views of the conservatives founders of the Heritage Foundation. Literally the popularization of the term “cultural marxism” can be traced to attacks on “political correctness” in the early 90s by Paul Weyrich. His claim was that Frankfurt school liberalism pretended to reject Marxism by projecting the same principles on to equality within a culture rather than an economy.

This is a long winded rant, but i’m really interested in understanding why there seem to be so many conflicting views on what people mean by terms they use to describe their own ideology like leftism vs. liberalism vs. Centrism vs conservative vs right.

I probably identify most closely as a liberal similar to the Frankfurt definition focused on equality, but not as in the liberal=centrism that most people always assume when they hear the term (I guess due to the liberal/centrist party in the U.K.?). Thre seem to be at least two very conflicting messages about the history of liberalism in the U.S. and what people mean when they talk about being liberal.

•From the perspective of the left, liberalism seems to be watered down leftism potentially hijacked by conservatives (possibly the CIA?) meant to intentionally distance leftist political ideology from Marxism in order to create a more palatable form of leftism that can then be easily controlled and manipulated by the right. Again, I need to read more resources about the idea that it was intentionally created by conservatives in the CIA, but I feel pretty confident saying that if that’s true, it has to be missing some other context because of what I know for a fact is also true regarding conservative views on liberalism and “Cultural Marxism.”

•From the perspective of the conservative right, liberalism seems to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or more specifically a radical Marxist disguising itself in liberal clothing. It’s meant to sneak radical ideology about equality into mainstream society via"Wokeness"/DEI or what has been referred to at various points over the last 50ish years as multiculturalism/political correctness or “cultural marxism” (and also somehow linked to Nazism? But then also somehow Stalin gets a pass by some on the right in 2025 because he was authoritarian and that’s cool?)

Anyway, the claim about the danger of wokeness and political correctness by many on the right (which especially post 2016 seems to lump leftism and liberalism together even though many leftists view liberals as centrists) boils down to this idea that anyone who doesn’t comply with the political correctness/“cultural Marxist collective” will become a target for refusing to join, and eventually will the day will come where you don’t just get “cancelled,” you’ll face the gulag or be sentenced to execution.

Right wing Heritage Foundation co-creator Paul Weyrich did a great job summarizing all of this during a Q&A he gave in 1996. I’ll add the link here, but it’s one of the earliest examples I’m aware of that really breaks down the idea of “Cultural Marxism” and the conservative idea about why political correctness is so dangerous. He then ties it back to liberalism/the Frankfurt school, (and I’m pretty sure he defends Pat Buchanan and then makes some vaguely antisemitic claims regarding the Frankfurt school, which was pretty typical for Weyrich.)

•From my own perspective, liberalism just means I support democracy, freedom/civil liberty and equality for everyone. That’s it. As in an equal chance for everyone.

I don’t support a rigged system designed to discriminate or stacks the decks against anyone else based on inherent differences, and I definitely don’t support any kind of heirarchy/caste system that prevents social mobility.

I support freed markets (not the state protected bullshit monopolies and oligopolies the U.S. claims are free markets). I don’t support anyone being drafted into a military or being forced to join something like a collective if they don’t want to (but I do think there can be value to a society that provides the option to join to anyone who chooses to do so at any point, especially a collective option). I support a social safety net, protections for civil rights and liberties, and federal safety standards and regulations for corporations or any mass distribution of products, because I believe the entire purpose of a government is to protect people from harm and exploitation when reasonably possible. But, those are just my personal opinions.

The CIA & the Frankfurt School’s Anti-Communism