- "mainstream us-left politics" does not represent the left, it represents the mainstream"

I'm not following you; the context is someone is trying to get someone *fired from their job* for using this language.

I don't see it. A lapsed maintainer's description of how, in their own perspective, an adversarial rallying cry is less than compatible with a prominent position in a collaborative setting… may be many things, justified or not.

But a credible threat it isn't. You know this, I know this, and every reader of this message knows this, too.

You're claiming that the American left has no issue with the term "thin blue line" or its context because that term is accepted by the mainstream. I provided links to demonstrate the contrary, illustrative of the fact that the American left does in fact have an issue with the term and its context, and that the mainstream of American politics and media does not represent the actual culture of American leftism.

Also the Noveau kernel is as far as I understand a FOSS project. There are no "jobs" from which one can be "fired."

So some fragile far-left activists have a grievance of the day with language that is benign for the majority of the population. So what? No one should care and the adults can continue about their day.