Moonbat

Moonbat is a snarl word referring to anyone whom the speaker considers unreasonably far to the left, analogous to "wingnut." Originally coined to refer to any sort of ideological nutjub,[1] the word has since undergone a confusing bifurcation: conservatives use it to describe pretty much any moderates and liberals,[note 1] and liberals use it to refer to batshittery within their own camp — not just extreme left-wingers, but also cranks and conspiracy theorists. It has nothing to do with the famous 1835 hoax propagated by The SunFile:Wikipedia's W.svg about bat people living on the Moon.

For the not-so-moonbatty webs(h)ite, see Moonbattery.
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According to conservative wingnuts

The following groups of people are often called moonbats, and often accused of liberal bias, and sometimes accused of being "socialists", according to the wingnut logic, many times:

According to liberals

The far-left-wing sort of moonbats are the closest analogies to wingnuts. In North America, the former is much more rare than the latter, probably due to shifts to the political right since the late 20th century, but where they do exist it's usually of a more hard green bent as opposed to an economic one (e.g. a communist). The more extreme buffoons of the anti-imperialism movement, like Ward Churchill, also contribute to America's moonbat population.

One reliable heuristic when separating moonbats from more rational lefties is their categorical opposition to everything the U.S. does overseas, to a degree unwarranted by skepticism. For example, Muammar Gaddafi kills protesters? The Viet Cong perpetrate mass killings of Montagnards and anti-Communists? Serb militias ethnically cleanse Bosnia and Kosovo? All of this is protested vigorously... until the U.S. and its allies move to intervene against the offenders, at which point genuine moonbats will often perform an instantaneous 180 and defend the repressive regime that they had previously loathed. It is rational to criticize a war by saying that it is killing more people than it was meant to save, causing major regional instability, or that it will generate unwanted blowback—but when one turns to sensationalism, platitudes, and name-calling, one has crossed into moonbat territory.

Groups often classified as moonbats include animal rights activists, anti-globalization activists, anti-consumerists, anarchists, radical environmentalists, New Atheists, and TERFs. Cranks in general — alties, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, anti-GMO crusaders, and especially the New Age crowd — are also often classified as moonbats, unless their ideas are intertwined with a right-wing and/or racist ideology, in which case the wingnut label is more appropriate. Examples of cranky moonbats are David Icke and Vani Hari, while Extinction Rebellion are also certainly moonbats owing to their exaggerations of the dangers of climate change and their (over)use of civil disobedience. Alex Jones, contrariwise, is a wingnut due to his wacky theories fueling a Christian fundamentalist agenda.

A final subcategory of moonbats generally leans left while holding a few views more typical of wingnuts, ushering in horseshoe theory comparisons. Cathy Brennan's extreme transphobia, Sam Harris's support for racial profiling or torture (and specifically of Khalid Sheik Mohammad), and the Bloc Québécois's ban on wearing Sikh ceremonial daggers in Parliament (even when they were not useful as weapons) and (most of the time) dismissal of bilingualism fall in this category. PETA are certainly moonbats, but it is hard to discern anything resembling left-wing thought left in all their nuttery. It's hard to tell whether or not the Freedom from Religion Foundation are moonbats, as their wacky publicity stunts downright forcing people to deconvert and their stance on Islam would place them in moonbat territory but their promotion of the separation of church and state does not make them moonbats in any way.

Other usage

In the last few years, the term "moonbat" has also come to refer to those individuals who subscribe to conspiracy theories regardless of political affiliation. Typically, such individuals have little regard for rational discourse, lack the ability to provide credible sources to support their arguments, and fail to demonstrate an elementary understanding of the fields they make claims about.

Most likely, the term has come to such an understanding due to the "screeching" such people do about a given conspiracy theory while unable to intelligently convey a legitimate reason for accepting it as fact.

gollark: No, I mean that that makes it quite hard for you to go around murdering me, as well as the other reasons.
gollark: See, society is mostly set up to *prevent* arbitrary murdering.
gollark: This is unlikely.
gollark: This is irrelevant, however, as I am an immortal (probably) probabilistic anomaly.
gollark: Doing so is entirely consistent with life expectancy figures, given that they're reduced for an already somewhat old person due to infant mortality.

See also

Notes
  1. Or so those loony lefties say.

References
  1. Barking moonbat: "noun. Someone on the extreme edge of whatever their -ism happens to be." ... "not originally a play on the last name of George Monbiot"
  2. George Monbiot joins the bourgeoisie, The Spectator, 26 December 2012
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