ITT: We hate on Progressives

[PHATJ]

A lot of butt hurt progressives up in here.

[wease]

A lot of butt hurt progressives up in here.

Your butt is progressive

[PHATJ]

A lot of butt hurt progressives up in here.

Your butt is progressive

Progressively getting thinner.

[wease]

A lot of butt hurt progressives up in here.

Your butt is progressive

Progressively getting thinner.

Sexy

[Bi_3]

You’re trying to posit that a TV actor faking an attack on himself with racist and anti-LGBTQ motives and the resulting responses to it are somehow linked to the progressive movement as a whole. I’m not seeing the link here, other than somehow trying to paint people who support progressive ideas as reactionary drones who are chomping at the bit to point the finger at Trump supporters and say “SEE I TOLD YOU THEY WERE ALL RACISTS!!” Sorry, but every group has its assholes and its idiots.

Other people may want to play that game with you, but I don’t. I am a complex person with many different beliefs that sometimes are at odds with each other. I try to take everything with a grain of salt, especially what the media is selling regardless of the source. They would have us believe that we’re all the sort of polarized, partisan hacks that dominate the Twittersphere and MSM. We’re not, and I’m not about to entertain this kind of ridiculousness.

I agree and that is part of the issue with the Progressive movement, they have an outsized voice in the popular media and appear to tolerate little dissent (another thing they have in common with Trumpsters).

This may interest you as it talks about who America is actually not very divide at all and is looking for that common ground:

https://hiddentribes.us/

[McParadigm]

To understand how far left (and how quickly) the Democratic party has moved, let’s cycle back a very short 20 years. If 1998 Bill Clinton ran in the Democratic primary today, he’d be instantaneously labeled a far-right bigot. His support for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Defense of Marriage Act, and “don’t ask, don’t tell” alone would label him as a conservative culture warrior. His crime bill and his views on illegal immigration would render him a racist bigot, and his balanced budget would block the dramatic expansion of the welfare state contained in Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

Here’s the 1968 version of this:

To understand how far left (and how quickly) the Democratic party has moved, let’s cycle back a very short 20 years. If 1948 Harry Truman ran in the Democratic primary today, he’d be instantaneously labeled a far-fight bigot. His executive order ensuring equality in the military was carefully worded to encourage but not force desegregation, and he made a point of saying that “if we attempt merely by passing a lot of laws to force someone to like someone else, we are just going to get into trouble.” He worked to undermine the power of unions, and the programs he created that were designed to root out “subversives” ultimately helped to inspire the McCarthy witch hunt. If that man were to stand on the stage today, he would be cast out by the modern Democrat party.

I guess my question in both cases (David’s actual piece, and my recreation of it) is…how is any of this bad? Why would 1968 Democrats have been better off supporting 1948’s version of equality? Why would 2019 Democrats feel mistaken for not maintaining 1992’s worldview?

Bill Clinton was a moderate politician first elected to the presidency the same year that Bill and Ted made forty million dollars while repeatedly using the word ‘faggot’ as an insult in a movie aimed at teens. The idea that gay people could just serve openly in the military wasn’t even a pipe dream. It was an impossibility. The conservative attitude of the time was that they shouldn’t be serving at all.

Obama’s stated opinion on gay marriage prior to attaining the presidency, had it remained, would (and should) absolutely make him unelectable today. But his push for survivor benefits etc was still (a little) progressive for that moment and, quite frankly, honest support for gay marriage would have made him unelectable at that point in time.

Change isn’t guaranteed, but where it does occur…it takes time. It takes generations, when bigotry is involved.

Also, H-Dawg was at the far right of the party in 2016, too, guy. That’s a big part of why Bernie’s Bros made such a mess of themselves, and it doesn’t help to illustrate any kind of a change.

Regarding the Gallup study, he leaves out a key detail in order to create his narrative: during the period where white Democrats outpaced other groups in liberal self-identification shifts, a number of white working class voters left the party and were largely replaced by formerly unaffiliated people of color. Nonwhite voters went from representing less than a third of the Democrat party to being nearly half of it in just five years. That’s a massive change, and it makes sense in that context that the current Democrat white voter population would be more likely than other groups to view itself as liberal. But here’s the thing: self-identification is not particularly informative of a group’s attitudes, anyway. For example, in “Medicare for All” polling, the Democrat group with the highest consistent support is also a group that sits near the low end of the liberal self-identification trend: African American women. The self-appointed white liberal shepherd of minorities is a constructed fantasy.

Oh, and sweating at the absolute horror of only *70%* of a political party identifying as Christian is the most David French thing ever.

[Bi_3]

To understand how far left (and how quickly) the Democratic party has moved, let’s cycle back a very short 20 years. If 1998 Bill Clinton ran in the Democratic primary today, he’d be instantaneously labeled a far-right bigot. His support for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Defense of Marriage Act, and “don’t ask, don’t tell” alone would label him as a conservative culture warrior. His crime bill and his views on illegal immigration would render him a racist bigot, and his balanced budget would block the dramatic expansion of the welfare state contained in Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

Here’s the 1968 version of this:

To understand how far left (and how quickly) the Democratic party has moved, let’s cycle back a very short 20 years. If 1948 Harry Truman ran in the Democratic primary today, he’d be instantaneously labeled a far-fight bigot. His executive order ensuring equality in the military was carefully worded to encourage but not force desegregation, and he made a point of saying that “if we attempt merely by passing a lot of laws to force someone to like someone else, we are just going to get into trouble.” He worked to undermine the power of unions, and the programs he created that were designed to root out “subversives” ultimately helped to inspire the McCarthy witch hunt. If that man were to stand on the stage today, he would be cast out by the modern Democrat party.

I guess my question in both cases (David’s actual piece, and my recreation of it) is…how is any of this bad? Why would 1968 Democrats have been better off supporting 1948’s version of equality? Why would 2019 Democrats feel mistaken for not maintaining 1992’s worldview?

Bill Clinton was a moderate politician first elected to the presidency the same year that Bill and Ted made forty million dollars while repeatedly using the word ‘faggot’ as an insult in a movie aimed at teens. The idea that gay people could just serve openly in the military wasn’t even a pipe dream. It was an impossibility. The conservative attitude of the time was that they shouldn’t be serving at all.

Obama’s stated opinion on gay marriage prior to attaining the presidency, had it remained, would (and should) absolutely make him unelectable today. But his push for survivor benefits etc was still (a little) progressive for that moment and, quite frankly, honest support for gay marriage would have made him unelectable at that point in time.

Change isn’t guaranteed, but where it does occur…it takes time. It takes generations, when bigotry is involved.

Also, H-Dawg was at the far right of the party in 2016, too, guy. That’s a big part of why Bernie’s Bros made such a mess of themselves, and it doesn’t help to illustrate any kind of a change.

I think those examples where intended to show the recent acceleration in the change of the party platform from generations to just a few years, not suggest they were improper.

Regarding the Gallup study, he leaves out a key detail in order to create his narrative: during the period where white Democrats outpaced other groups in liberal self-identification shifts, a number of white working class voters left the party and were largely replaced by formerly unaffiliated people of color. Nonwhite voters went from representing less than a third of the Democrat party to being nearly half of it in just five years. That’s a massive change, and it makes sense in that context that the current Democrat white voter population would be more likely than other groups to view itself as liberal. But here’s the thing: self-identification is not particularly informative of a group’s attitudes, anyway. For example, in “Medicare for All” polling, the Democrat group with the highest consistent support is also a group that sits near the low end of the liberal self-identification trend: African American women. The self-appointed white liberal shepherd of minorities is a constructed fantasy.

Oh, and sweating at the absolute horror of only *70%* of a political party identifying as Christian is the most David French thing ever.

So if self-identification doesn't work, how does one identify? I identify as liberal (not progressive) but do not support Medicare for all.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2 ... tic-party/

[bune]

[Norah]

I identify as libera but do not support Medicare for all.

And Liz Warren identifies as Native American but it doesn't make it true.

[McParadigm]

I think those examples where intended to show the recent acceleration in the change of the party platform from generations to just a few years, not suggest they were improper.

“This increasingly rapid secularization and liberalization makes national unity far more difficult.”

“But it’s not just the rapid policy changes that are antithetical to national consensus, it’s the spirit behind them. Change is fast, and there is no toleration for those left behind.”

Here’s his own summary of the article from the Twit:
“White progressives are running so far to the left that even other Democrats lag way behind. They're combining aggressive moves to the Left with intolerance for everyone not right by their side. It's a key factor in American polarization.”

So if self-identification doesn't work, how does one identify? I identify as liberal (not progressive) but do not support Medicare for all.

I don’t really have an opinion on that because I don’t have strong feelings about worldview labels. They largely disinterest me, so I tend not to engage with or follow any discussion that happens around them. I just know that self-identification and predictive polling are not good indicators of how people will respond when an actual policy or legislation debate is live and running.

[Bi_3]

I identify as libera but do not support Medicare for all.

And Liz Warren identifies as Native American but it doesn't make it true.

Adults are talking chud.


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/opin ... -lost.html

[BurtReynolds]

Recent news suggests progressives never gave up on eugenics, they just hid it away for awhile.

[Bi_3]

Who has said otherwise?

[BurtReynolds]

I really hate the term progressive. It doesn't suggest a set of beliefs. At best it sounds like marketing slogan designed to cast everyone else as anti-progress (even a luddite is for a form of progress). The beliefs seem as cobbled together as those of the conservatives, and both seem to change with the wind.

Both are pretty terrible labels, but I guess these are the teams most of America are stuck with. It all just sounds so incoherent and arbitrary, until I remember that this is mostly just tribal partisanship.

The good news at least is that the label "liberal" is possibly being freed up for actual liberals again. Real socialists will happily admit they are as anti-liberal as the far right.

[Superblood Wolfmoon]

Pretty sure they only said “fag” once in Bill & Ted.

[lennytheweedwhacker]

i don't like abortion

[Green Habit]

I really hate the term progressive. It doesn't suggest a set of beliefs. At best it sounds like marketing slogan designed to cast everyone else as anti-progress (even a luddite is for a form of progress). The beliefs seem as cobbled together as those of the conservatives, and both seem to change with the wind.

Both are pretty terrible labels, but I guess these are the teams most of America are stuck with. It all just sounds so incoherent and arbitrary, until I remember that this is mostly just tribal partisanship.

The good news at least is that the label "liberal" is possibly being freed up for actual liberals again. Real socialists will happily admit they are as anti-liberal as the far right.

I agree with most of this, especially the part I bolded, though I'd say that that would be closer to "at worst" than "at best". And as you say, this viewpoint can also contain illiberal views within it that makes "liberal" not entirely accurate either. I'd like to just call them left wing, but the rise of the socialist left is complicating that term too. Ugh, the English language can be a pain in the ass at times.

[Superblood Wolfmoon]

I really hate the term progressive. It doesn't suggest a set of beliefs. At best it sounds like marketing slogan designed to cast everyone else as anti-progress (even a luddite is for a form of progress). The beliefs seem as cobbled together as those of the conservatives, and both seem to change with the wind.

Both are pretty terrible labels, but I guess these are the teams most of America are stuck with. It all just sounds so incoherent and arbitrary, until I remember that this is mostly just tribal partisanship.

The good news at least is that the label "liberal" is possibly being freed up for actual liberals again. Real socialists will happily admit they are as anti-liberal as the far right.

I agree with most of this, especially the part I bolded, though I'd say that that would be closer to "at worst" than "at best". And as you say, this viewpoint can also contain illiberal views within it that makes "liberal" not entirely accurate either. I'd like to just call them left wing, but the rise of the socialist left is complicating that term too. Ugh, the English language can be a pain in the ass at times.

Is language the problem? Or is it humans’ need to put people, things, and ideas into neat little boxes with labels on them?

[BurtReynolds]

Lately I think most problems are language problems

[Bi_3]

I really hate the term progressive. It doesn't suggest a set of beliefs. At best it sounds like marketing slogan designed to cast everyone else as anti-progress (even a luddite is for a form of progress). The beliefs seem as cobbled together as those of the conservatives, and both seem to change with the wind.

Both are pretty terrible labels, but I guess these are the teams most of America are stuck with. It all just sounds so incoherent and arbitrary, until I remember that this is mostly just tribal partisanship.

The good news at least is that the label "liberal" is possibly being freed up for actual liberals again. Real socialists will happily admit they are as anti-liberal as the far right.

I agree with most of this, especially the part I bolded, though I'd say that that would be closer to "at worst" than "at best". And as you say, this viewpoint can also contain illiberal views within it that makes "liberal" not entirely accurate either. I'd like to just call them left wing, but the rise of the socialist left is complicating that term too. Ugh, the English language can be a pain in the ass at times.

I think you are both right (in a similar manner to what McP said) that the labels are amorphous and exact meanings change based on the person... and yet we all seem to know exactly who is meant by “a progressive”.

Here is a somewhat long, but well written article on the distinction

https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/4 ... ing-words/

This part in particular does a good job of outlining some of the ideas I seen posted here:

Let me present one liberal’s view of some of the distinctions between progressive and liberal. Progressives are generally hostile to capitalism. The system itself, for progressives, is not simply rigged, it is defined by its exploitation and its dysfunctions. Under the rubric of “neoliberalism,” conservatives and liberals are conflated, John Maynard Keynes forgotten, and Democratic administrations falsely equated with Republican ones. Consorting with institutions or individuals of great wealth, consulting them for their knowledge of how very complicated things work, and, even worse, seeking their support for greater liberal objectives, is, to progressives, proof positive of one’s corruption.