You have to watch out for those "dangerous" progressives out to save you from yourself

 

In 2019, Peter Wehner wrote in The Atlantic that progressive Democrats were “radicalizing” the party. This couldn’t be any further from the truth, because the truth is that progressives make do-nothing “liberals” uncomfortable when they have the “nerve” to speak up. Are “progressive” initiatives like universal health coverage, “green energy,” and a living minimum wages really policy goals that “comedian” and political commentator Bill Maher is calling “loony left”? I mean, really?

Maher does complain about “wokeness” and “cancel culture” and how he fears he may be “cancelled” if he says the “wrong” things. Not that Maher doesn’t have a point; after all there is plenty of hypocrisy about. CNN president Jeff Zucker was “persuaded” to resign when it was disclosed he had a consensual relationship with a coworker. That individual, Allison Gollust, was not subject to any disciplinary action at all for failing to “disclose” the relationship, which had been on a “professional” basis for two decades until recently. “Gendered” double standards, anyone?

But being “woke” or involved in “cancel culture” isn’t what it means to be “progressive,” since most of those involved in that seem to be more self-involved in their own conceited little universe than to care about the world outside. Maher may want to think twice about taking on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on his show, since he would only be exposed as an arrogant blowhard with only a superficial grasp on the important problems facing this country and the world. AOC always takes “heat” for her support for green energy, but who really are the “radicals” here? The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just released a new report that concluded that the window of opportunity to prevent catastrophic climate change is narrowing, and that

The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.

Why do all of us have to be stupid? A New York Times video op-ed, “Liberal Hypocrisy is Fueling American Inequality 1,” tells us that while self-styled liberal voters usually support social and economic justice policies in the generality, they don’t necessarily want to see them implemented in their own backyard, with affordable housing the most obvious. “Liberal” Seattle has a huge homeless problem, but it didn’t used to. When I first moved to Seattle in the early 1990s, it wasn’t hard to find “rooms” to rent for $250 a month. I remember how the downtown area had numerous residential motels (although mostly in need of upkeep), that have since been demolished. 

An apartment complex I was living in for seven years was purchased by an investment company, which immediately doubled the rent, and after not being able to find enough people willing to pay that for a roach-infested closet, had the building demolished. In more recent times, “gentrification” took over, with lower-income and minority neighborhoods being property taxed out of existence, or being bought out by developers who built condos for people who once wouldn’t even go near those parts of town. The previous residents had to be “driven” out so that the new ones could “mingle” with their “own kind.” Today, the city council keeps talking about implementing “affordable housing” measures and getting people off the streets, but somehow none of that seems to be happening in practice. 

It’s tough enough to deal with Trump Nazis, but liberal hypocrites too? During the 2016 Democratic primaries between Hillary Clinton and the man who had the gall to oppose her media-greased nomination that she was “owed,” Bernie Sanders, the BBC’s Nancy Yang—whether it was her intention or not—wrote a post exposing just how far to the right that the Democratic Party had become in recent times, and in effect causing progressive ideals to seem “radical.” For example, she pointed how in the 1960s Hubert Humphrey supported fair employment and housing laws, but he did not call himself a “progressive”; those positions were just what Democrats did because it was the “right thing” to do.   

But “doing the right thing” was always something that those who identified themselves as “progressive” expected of themselves, especially when the label meant moving society “forward.” The progressive movement of the early 20^th century did this by taking on business and political corruption and abuses, fought for health care, education and economic reforms. The labor rights and social programs that most people take for granted today were largrly the result of the efforts of that movement. But as we all know, there are still many battles to be fought: climate change, the growing income inequality gap, the growth of white nationalism, the efforts to suppress voting rights, and to fight the belief that some people are more “deserving” of having rights than others. 

Now doing the “right thing” seems to be too “radical” for some people, as we have seen among certain members of the Democratic Party who see even the limited in scope “Build Back Better” plan as just too much for their weak minds. Then there are those, like Clinton, who claimed to support the goals that progressives sought, but only through “incremental” changes. But as we all should know by now, that means doing “nothing,” which naturally frustrates the progressive wing of the Democratic Party—especially during those times like now when there was a chance to do even a little bit, but it was just too “radical” for  two rocks-for-brains senators. 

I don’t consider myself a “progressive” or anything at all, and I agree with Maher in that it at least appears that “wokeness” and “cancel culture” is a hypocritical side effect of alleged “liberal” politics. But these things have nothing to do with what being a “progressive” is, which has not changed in over a century. Peter Wehner and others like him are wrong; if the Democratic Party has been “radicalized,” it is only in comparison of the acceptance of right-wing extremism in the age of Trump and white nationalism—and the belief of the Democratic establishment that it has to “compromise” with the radical right to be “electable.” Progressives in this country have been fighting a mostly losing battle in this country for 50 years, or longer if you think that the New Deal was the most “progressive” policy era—and it is not just their loss, but the country’s as well for the failure of vision to see the long-term cost of  willful ignorance and blindness. 

Finally, it is despicable to compare AOC to national embarrassments like Marjorie Taylor Greene--who even Kevin McCarthy felt forced to criticize after her recent appearance at a white supremacist conference which she refused to admit was a "mistake"—and Lauren Boebert, who joined her in devolving into eight-year-old antics at the State of the Union address.