What is a fair weather liberal?

Answer 1

Fair Weather Liberals are people who lack conviction in their faith, and tend to blow with the wind. When the wind is calm or blows to the left, they tend to be liberal, but when the wind changes direction and blows to the right, they are quick to abandon their moral beliefs and become more conservative.

Actually, Fair Weather Liberal has nothing to do with politics. It is a sociology term that refers to people who are not prejudice, but will discriminate when they feel pressured to do so. For example, a non-prejudice person may laugh at a racist joke if everyone else around them is doing so. Another example would be people who allow minority groups to be treated unfairly if they thought they would personally get into trouble with others for standing up for the minority person or group. It is believed that a great majority of Americans are either fair weather liberals or timid bigots. Timid bigots are people who are racist but afraid to show it because of societal pressures - it is not PC to be racist these days. For example a white manager of an apratment complex may rent to a minority family even though he hates minorities, because he feels he would be reported to a fair housing commission if it was discovered that he rented to only whites.