Liberals: Moderates vs. Progressives

[Mr Spinkles]

This thread is intended for liberals (in the American sense), but all are welcome to weigh in.

Do you consider yourself to be on the more “moderate” or more “progressive” ends of the liberal spectrum? What are your primary concerns / criticisms with liberals on the opposite end of the spectrum?

In the US, they say there are two camps among Democrats: the moderates (epitomized by figures like Biden, among others) and the progressives (epitomized by figures like Bernie and AOC, among others).

I consider myself to be a moderate. The biggest problem I have with the progressive camp is what I believe to be their misplaced confidence that their ideas appeal to a strong majority of American voters. I just don’t see it. I have seen firsthand how many Americans positively loathe gun control, universal healthcare, free college, BLM, open borders, addressing climate change and many other things that many / some liberals think are wonderful. Just watch a video of a packed Trump rally and you will see what I mean. I have a VERY hard time believing people were flying Trump / Pence flags on their pickup trucks as a form of protest because the Democratic Party didn’t nominate a socialist, like Bernie, who they really wanted.

For that reason, I don’t believe progress can be made without strategic compromises with the “other” half of America that thinks windmills cause cancer. Joe Biden refused to promise to ban fracking, for example. I think this was smart. This is much better than promising to ban fracking, losing to Trump, and having at least four more years of the US being one of the only nations to remain out of the Paris Agreement.

 

[Samael_Khan]

This thread is intended for liberals (in the American sense), but all are welcome to weigh in.

Do you consider yourself to be on the more “moderate” or more “progressive” ends of the liberal spectrum? What are your primary concerns / criticisms with liberals on the opposite end of the spectrum?

In the US, they say there are two camps among Democrats: the moderates (epitomized by figures like Biden, among others) and the progressives (epitomized by figures like Bernie and AOC, among others).

I consider myself to be a moderate. The biggest problem I have with the progressive camp is what I believe to be their misplaced confidence that their ideas appeal to a strong majority of American voters. I just don’t see it. I have seen firsthand how many Americans positively loathe gun control, universal healthcare, free college, BLM, open borders, addressing climate change and many other things that many / some liberals think are wonderful. Just watch a video of a packed Trump rally and you will see what I mean. I have a VERY hard time believing people were flying Trump / Pence flags on their pickup trucks as a form of protest because the Democratic Party didn’t nominate a socialist, like Bernie, who they really wanted.

For that reason, I don’t believe progress can be made without strategic compromises with the “other” half of America that thinks windmills cause cancer. Joe Biden refused to promise to ban fracking, for example. I think this was smart. This is much better than promising to ban fracking, losing to Trump, and having at least four more years of the US being one of the only nations to remain out of the Paris Agreement.

I think that the problem here is that progressives don't have a good PR campaign going. For instance, most of those, if not all, who were against Bernie do not actually understand what socialism is. And I think that this is because socialism originate in academia which automatically makes it more complicated and difficult for the average American to understand. You guys are still having a problem with people understanding evolution because it is intellectually inaccessible to many. And how many progressives actually understand what they believe politically? From what I have seen, many people don't truly understand the reasons behind why they say open borders, free college, BLM etc. matters to society and usually come off as ignorant and antagonistic to those who do not follow their ideals.

So every ideology starts off small and grows, and progressive thought has made progress in the political sphere bit by bit. People must just be educated in the intellectual understanding of progressive though by people who actually understand the theory behind it in a basic way.

 

[Heyo]

I consider myself to be a moderate. The biggest problem I have with the progressive camp is what I believe to be their misplaced confidence that their ideas appeal to a strong majority of American voters. I just don’t see it. I have seen firsthand how many Americans positively loathe gun control, universal healthcare, free college, BLM, open borders, addressing climate change and many other things that many / some liberals think are wonderful.

Maybe you shouldn't trust your own bubble experience and look at the polls?
Most of the things the progressives stand for are exceptionally popular.

 

[SomeRandom]

US liberals are thought more to be centre right by pretty much everyone else in the West lol

 

[Valjean]

This thread is intended for liberals (in the American sense), but all are welcome to weigh in.

Do you consider yourself to be on the more “moderate” or more “progressive” ends of the liberal spectrum? What are your primary concerns / criticisms with liberals on the opposite end of the spectrum?

In the American sense I'd be a radical progressive.

In the US, they say there are two camps among Democrats: the moderates (epitomized by figures like Biden, among others) and the progressives (epitomized by figures like Bernie and AOC, among others).

"Progressive" is a relative term.
For several decades the 'progressives' have been moving to the right.
The Democrats used to be the party of the working man, but at some point decided they would have more success pandering to the technical class; so much so that former conservatives like Reagan and Nixon would be considered radical liberals by modern standards.

The Democrats and Republicans have a lock on American politics. 'Democratic Socialists', Greens, &c have little chance, The one thing both major parties will co-operate on is barring competitors to their two party, winner-take-all system.

I consider myself to be a moderate. The biggest problem I have with the progressive camp is what I believe to be their misplaced confidence that their ideas appeal to a strong majority of American voters. I just don’t see it. I have seen firsthand how many Americans positively loathe gun control, universal healthcare, free college, BLM, open borders, addressing climate change and many other things that many / some liberals think are wonderful. Just watch a video of a packed Trump rally and you will see what I mean. I have a VERY hard time believing people were flying Trump / Pence flags on their pickup trucks as a form of protest because the Democratic Party didn’t nominate a socialist, like Bernie, who they really wanted.

But, as I understand it, polling finds that most Americans do want Education and healthcare reform; most support democratic reforms when presented individually and in a non-politicized context.

I think the Trump populists are a minority -- albeit a loud, boisterous and news grabbing one. They have legitimate grievances, but have been deceived as to their cause.
Nor are they aware of alternatives, such as the European socialized, Bismark or Beveridge healthcare systems, or their social or educational systems, or even their own country's historical social systems.

For that reason, I don’t believe progress can be made without strategic compromises with the “other” half of America that thinks windmills cause cancer. Joe Biden refused to promise to ban fracking, for example. I think this was smart. This is much better than promising to ban fracking, losing to Trump, and having at least four more years of the US being one of the only nations to remain out of the Paris Agreement.

Alas, every time the parties compromise, the Democrats loose ground, corporations gain, and the wealth gap widens.

 

[Sunstone]

I don't categorize 'moderates' and 'progressives' under the same umbrella term, 'liberal'. What the OP calls moderates, I call liberals. Progressives are not a form or variation on liberalism. The two camps have significantly different underlying notions. It is misleading to think of progressives as 'further left liberals'. The predominant political ideology of liberals -- what the OP calls 'moderates' -- is neoliberalism. That ideology is rejected by most all progressives. In a sense, progressive politics is a reaction against it.

 

[exchemist]

This thread is intended for liberals (in the American sense), but all are welcome to weigh in.

Do you consider yourself to be on the more “moderate” or more “progressive” ends of the liberal spectrum? What are your primary concerns / criticisms with liberals on the opposite end of the spectrum?

In the US, they say there are two camps among Democrats: the moderates (epitomized by figures like Biden, among others) and the progressives (epitomized by figures like Bernie and AOC, among others).

I consider myself to be a moderate. The biggest problem I have with the progressive camp is what I believe to be their misplaced confidence that their ideas appeal to a strong majority of American voters. I just don’t see it. I have seen firsthand how many Americans positively loathe gun control, universal healthcare, free college, BLM, open borders, addressing climate change and many other things that many / some liberals think are wonderful. Just watch a video of a packed Trump rally and you will see what I mean. I have a VERY hard time believing people were flying Trump / Pence flags on their pickup trucks as a form of protest because the Democratic Party didn’t nominate a socialist, like Bernie, who they really wanted.

For that reason, I don’t believe progress can be made without strategic compromises with the “other” half of America that thinks windmills cause cancer. Joe Biden refused to promise to ban fracking, for example. I think this was smart. This is much better than promising to ban fracking, losing to Trump, and having at least four more years of the US being one of the only nations to remain out of the Paris Agreement.

As a slightly right-of-centre UK observer it always amazes me how policies that were adopted years ago in Britain and endorsed across the political spectrum (e.g. gun control, ban on capital punishment, national health provision funded from taxation, hate speech laws, protection against wrongful dismissal), are stigmatised as "socialist" in the USA. Clearly the centre of gravity of US politics is a long way to the right of anywhere in Europe, including the UK.

So I feel sure Clem Attlee's observation, trying to head off the radicals in his party after the war, that "the people's flag is palest pink" must apply even more strongly in the US than it does in the UK. The British experience is that every time the Left argues they lost an election by not being left-wing enough, their party is consigned to the wilderness for a decade. It is only when they come back towards the centre that they return to power.

Looking at the US scene, and comparing it with our ghastly Brexit experience (which is just about to get a lot worse), it seems to me the two things the US left needs to recognise are that (a) droning on about identity politics is a massive turnoff for most people and (b ) that any party of the Left needs to have some understanding of the perspective of "poor whites", squeezed out of traditional skilled jobs in industry as a result of deindustrialisation. I think the two issues are related. The identity politics focus seems to fetishise minority issues and neglect the white working class culture of much of the country, cf. Clinton's "deplorables" and Obama's "clinging to guns and bibles". That leaves the field wide open for the stirring up of dogwhistle racism and the stigmatising of the urban intelligentsia as an out of touch "elite" - a classic piece of political misdirection since in fact the real "elite" is the plutocracy on the Right!

 

[Twilight Hue]

This thread is intended for liberals (in the American sense), but all are welcome to weigh in.

Do you consider yourself to be on the more “moderate” or more “progressive” ends of the liberal spectrum? What are your primary concerns / criticisms with liberals on the opposite end of the spectrum?

In the US, they say there are two camps among Democrats: the moderates (epitomized by figures like Biden, among others) and the progressives (epitomized by figures like Bernie and AOC, among others).

I consider myself to be a moderate. The biggest problem I have with the progressive camp is what I believe to be their misplaced confidence that their ideas appeal to a strong majority of American voters. I just don’t see it. I have seen firsthand how many Americans positively loathe gun control, universal healthcare, free college, BLM, open borders, addressing climate change and many other things that many / some liberals think are wonderful. Just watch a video of a packed Trump rally and you will see what I mean. I have a VERY hard time believing people were flying Trump / Pence flags on their pickup trucks as a form of protest because the Democratic Party didn’t nominate a socialist, like Bernie, who they really wanted.

For that reason, I don’t believe progress can be made without strategic compromises with the “other” half of America that thinks windmills cause cancer. Joe Biden refused to promise to ban fracking, for example. I think this was smart. This is much better than promising to ban fracking, losing to Trump, and having at least four more years of the US being one of the only nations to remain out of the Paris Agreement.

It isn't that people loathe things like education and Healthcare. Its the planning and implementation that defines on doing something right vs doing something half-assed and careless that when implemented, actually does more harm than good like robbing Peter to pay Paul that we see time and time again from so called 'liberals and progressives'.

 

[joe1776]

This thread is intended for liberals (in the American sense), but all are welcome to weigh in.

Do you consider yourself to be on the more “moderate” or more “progressive” ends of the liberal spectrum? What are your primary concerns / criticisms with liberals on the opposite end of the spectrum?

In the US, they say there are two camps among Democrats: the moderates (epitomized by figures like Biden, among others) and the progressives (epitomized by figures like Bernie and AOC, among others).

I consider myself to be a moderate. The biggest problem I have with the progressive camp is what I believe to be their misplaced confidence that their ideas appeal to a strong majority of American voters. I just don’t see it. I have seen firsthand how many Americans positively loathe gun control, universal healthcare, free college, BLM, open borders, addressing climate change and many other things that many / some liberals think are wonderful. Just watch a video of a packed Trump rally and you will see what I mean. I have a VERY hard time believing people were flying Trump / Pence flags on their pickup trucks as a form of protest because the Democratic Party didn’t nominate a socialist, like Bernie, who they really wanted.

For that reason, I don’t believe progress can be made without strategic compromises with the “other” half of America that thinks windmills cause cancer. Joe Biden refused to promise to ban fracking, for example. I think this was smart. This is much better than promising to ban fracking, losing to Trump, and having at least four more years of the US being one of the only nations to remain out of the Paris Agreement.

Progressive here.

Let's focus on universal healthcare as an example. In my opinion, this is something every American with a brain should want because the current fraud-filled system is dragging down the economy. The free market works just fine when well-informed consumers, spending their own money, can shop and compare products. But that isn't possible in healthcare. The free market is simply the wrong tool for the job.

There's no significant, moderate compromise possible on this.

 

[Revoltingest]

It isn't that people loathe things like education and Healthcare. Its the planning and implementation that defines on doing something right vs doing something half-assed and careless that when implemented, actually does more harm than good like robbing Peter to pay Paul that we see time and time again from so called 'liberals and progressives'.

Certified "progressive" here.
(I forget what test I took. But it was cromulent.)

Tribalism....it hinders discussion.
I notice that even conservatives can be progressive, & that many
liberals ("illiberals") aren't. Looking at things from an issues perspective
Is more productive.
Take something like health care. There's common ground to be found
in a government provided system...one financed by taxes, with private
providers, & allowing the right to pay for care not provided by the gov
system. This would have universal coverage, simplicity, & a Plan B, ie,
the legal right to buy services one wants.

"Conservative", "liberal", "progressive", & "libertarian" can have some
overlap on their Venn diagram.

 

[Stevicus]

This thread is intended for liberals (in the American sense), but all are welcome to weigh in.

Do you consider yourself to be on the more “moderate” or more “progressive” ends of the liberal spectrum? What are your primary concerns / criticisms with liberals on the opposite end of the spectrum?

In the US, they say there are two camps among Democrats: the moderates (epitomized by figures like Biden, among others) and the progressives (epitomized by figures like Bernie and AOC, among others).

I consider myself to be a moderate. The biggest problem I have with the progressive camp is what I believe to be their misplaced confidence that their ideas appeal to a strong majority of American voters. I just don’t see it. I have seen firsthand how many Americans positively loathe gun control, universal healthcare, free college, BLM, open borders, addressing climate change and many other things that many / some liberals think are wonderful. Just watch a video of a packed Trump rally and you will see what I mean. I have a VERY hard time believing people were flying Trump / Pence flags on their pickup trucks as a form of protest because the Democratic Party didn’t nominate a socialist, like Bernie, who they really wanted.

For that reason, I don’t believe progress can be made without strategic compromises with the “other” half of America that thinks windmills cause cancer. Joe Biden refused to promise to ban fracking, for example. I think this was smart. This is much better than promising to ban fracking, losing to Trump, and having at least four more years of the US being one of the only nations to remain out of the Paris Agreement.

The irony of 2016 is that Trump was able to win over a lot of blue-collar voters simply by paying lip service to issues which used to be the bread-and-butter of the Democratic Party. Simply promising better wages, better working conditions, affordable housing, affordable healthcare, etc., would have been enough to gain the blue-collar vote and the progressive vote. Another tack they might have tried was to support a shift in foreign policy towards non-interventionism and pro-peace.

The trouble with the Democrats (and especially the moderate Democrats) is that they seem to not want to rock the boat they're sharing with Republicans, so they pick on symbolic issues which don't really directly affect that many voters, yet sound good and noble on the surface. Issues such as gun control, abortion, gay marriage, BLM, and even climate change - the average voter isn't really affected by these things (not in terms of direct, immediate impact), yet they're also "safe" issues in that the gangsters and other capitalists don't feel personally threatened by the Democrats' stance. Even Obamacare turned out to be an enormous boon for the insurance companies and other healthcare-related industries. But it didn't really help the people.

If the working classes of America were given a few thousand extra every month - along with lower prices on food, gas, utilities, housing, healthcare, and education - then they would reward whichever party gave it to them with their votes. The way I see it, it's the supposedly "moderate" Democrats standing in the way of that.

 

[Brickjectivity]

As a slightly right-of-centre UK observer it always amazes me how policies that were adopted years ago in Britain and endorsed across the political spectrum (e.g. gun control, ban on capital punishment, national health provision funded from taxation, hate speech laws, protection against wrongful dismissal), are stigmatised as "socialist" in the USA. Clearly the centre of gravity of US politics is a long way to the right of anywhere in Europe, including the UK.

So I feel sure Clem Attlee's observation, trying to head off the radicals in his party after the war, that "the people's flag is palest pink" must apply even more strongly in the US than it does in the UK. The British experience is that every time the Left argues they lost an election by not being left-wing enough, their party is consigned to the wilderness for a decade. It is only when they come back towards the centre that they return to power.

Looking at the US scene, and comparing it with our ghastly Brexit experience (which is just about to get a lot worse), it seems to me the two things the US left needs to recognise are that (a) droning on about identity politics is a massive turnoff for most people and (b ) that any party of the Left needs to have some understanding of the perspective of "poor whites", squeezed out of traditional skilled jobs in industry as a result of deindustrialisation. I think the two issues are related. The identity politics focus seems to fetishise minority issues and neglect the white working class culture of much of the country, cf. Clinton's "deplorables" and Obama's "clinging to guns and bibles". That leaves the field wide open for the stirring up of dogwhistle racism and the stigmatising of the urban intelligentsia as an out of touch "elite" - a classic piece of political misdirection since in fact the real "elite" is the plutocracy on the Right!

Well spoken. You may have some important points.

What is strange when I hear it from the UK is the insistence that USA simply hasn't adopted things 'Yet' as if it were the ultimate goal to be like the new EU or the new UK. You folks are now become the great experiment in what you are doing. Just because things have been tolerable for fifty years doesn't mean you have found a stable form of government. There are also a lot of things in european countries that I hear about which I don't want to happen here, such the way you folks are tossing your own cultures out of the door. I don't understand that. Correct me if I am wrong in this speculation. It seems like you hate your own pasts and want to be anything new, and that isn't how I feel. I regret the past, but I still want be that country sandwiched between Canada and Mexico and which has a strong English cultural heritage and toleration of others driven by, whatever I know for a fact will keep driving it. I don't want to trust that humanism will crop up on its own in an irreligious vacuum. Humanist values I don't see cropping up by themselves in the vacuum of religion. I realize its possible, but I also don't want to throw away (thin though it may seem) my cultural heritage for the sake of trendy political ideas.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I consider myself to be a moderate. The biggest problem I have with the progressive camp is what I believe to be their misplaced confidence that their ideas appeal to a strong majority of American voters. I just don’t see it. I have seen firsthand how many Americans positively loathe gun control, universal healthcare, free college, BLM, open borders, addressing climate change and many other things that many / some liberals think are wonderful.

This seems like a very strange position to take.

On health care, for instance: do you seriously think the features of the status quo like doing GoFundMe campaigns to cover basic healthcare costs and deciding to let their treatable conditions kill them so they don't bankrupt their families are more popular than a single-payer system would be?

Does this "strong majority of American voters" like having manufacturing jobs in the US?

As an example: I remember in the 2007-2008 economic downturn when GM was closing plants. Their plant in Oshawa, Ontario stayed open because our public health insurance made GM's labour costs lower, and made the Canadian plants more cost-effective overall. They closed an American plant (in Tennessee, IIRC) instead.

 

[Stevicus]

Looking at the US scene, and comparing it with our ghastly Brexit experience (which is just about to get a lot worse), it seems to me the two things the US left needs to recognise are that (a) droning on about identity politics is a massive turnoff for most people and (b ) that any party of the Left needs to have some understanding of the perspective of "poor whites", squeezed out of traditional skilled jobs in industry as a result of deindustrialisation. I think the two issues are related. The identity politics focus seems to fetishise minority issues and neglect the white working class culture of much of the country, cf. Clinton's "deplorables" and Obama's "clinging to guns and bibles". That leaves the field wide open for the stirring up of dogwhistle racism and the stigmatising of the urban intelligentsia as an out of touch "elite" - a classic piece of political misdirection since in fact the real "elite" is the plutocracy on the Right!

I think the elite will support whatever keeps the masses divided and at odds with each other. That's an effective way of maintaining power. By keeping the hoi polloi fighting each other, they're less likely to oppose the system.

 

[Revoltingest]

I think the elite will support whatever keeps the masses divided and at odds with each other. That's an effective way of maintaining power. By keeping the hoi polloi fighting each other, they're less likely to oppose the system.

Who are these "elites", & what evidence is there for this being their motive?
The alternative explanation is that competing interests fight with each other
because each wants to win, ie, a stochastic process rather than one guided
by design.

 

[Audie]

This thread is intended for liberals (in the American sense), but all are welcome to weigh in.

Do you consider yourself to be on the more “moderate” or more “progressive” ends of the liberal spectrum? What are your primary concerns / criticisms with liberals on the opposite end of the spectrum?

In the US, they say there are two camps among Democrats: the moderates (epitomized by figures like Biden, among others) and the progressives (epitomized by figures like Bernie and AOC, among others).

I consider myself to be a moderate. The biggest problem I have with the progressive camp is what I believe to be their misplaced confidence that their ideas appeal to a strong majority of American voters. I just don’t see it. I have seen firsthand how many Americans positively loathe gun control, universal healthcare, free college, BLM, open borders, addressing climate change and many other things that many / some liberals think are wonderful. Just watch a video of a packed Trump rally and you will see what I mean. I have a VERY hard time believing people were flying Trump / Pence flags on their pickup trucks as a form of protest because the Democratic Party didn’t nominate a socialist, like Bernie, who they really wanted.

For that reason, I don’t believe progress can be made without strategic compromises with the “other” half of America that thinks windmills cause cancer. Joe Biden refused to promise to ban fracking, for example. I think this was smart. This is much better than promising to ban fracking, losing to Trump, and having at least four more years of the US being one of the only nations to remain out of the Paris Agreement.

I see it as misplaced confidence that the ideas they adopted are good ideas.

 

[Audie]

I think that the problem here is that progressives don't have a good PR campaign going. For instance, most of those, if not all, who were against Bernie do not actually understand what socialism is. And I think that this is because socialism originate in academia which automatically makes it more complicated and difficult for the average American to understand. You guys are still having a problem with people understanding evolution because it is intellectually inaccessible to many. And how many progressives actually understand what they believe politically? From what I have seen, many people don't truly understand the reasons behind why they say open borders, free college, BLM etc. matters to society and usually come off as ignorant and antagonistic to those who do not follow their ideals.

So every ideology starts off small and grows, and progressive thought has made progress in the political sphere bit by bit. People must just be educated in the intellectual understanding of progressive though by people who actually understand the theory behind it in a basic way.

PR consisting of the "squad" is going to have limited appeal.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

American 'liberalism' is the art of upholding progressive values just so long as it does not create excessive discomfort among communities of white privilege. Its banner is ever and always:

Nobody likes things the way they are,
but you're going too fast and you're going too far!​

 

[Stevicus]

Who are these "elites", & what evidence is there for this being their motive?
The alternative explanation is that competing interests fight with each other
because each wants to win, ie, a stochastic process rather than one guided
by design.

The elites are those who set the agenda and decide which issues they deem "important" or "noteworthy" enough to call to the public's attention. The evidence is in the content of what is presented to the public and shows that much of the public is, indeed, enraptured and easily distracted.

 

[Revoltingest]

The elites are those who set the agenda and decide which issues they deem "important" or "noteworthy" enough to call to the public's attention. The evidence is in the content of what is presented to the public and shows that much of the public is, indeed, enraptured and easily distracted.

This doesn't answer the question I posed.
Again...
Who are these "elites", & what evidence is there for this being their motive?
The alternative explanation is that competing interests fight with each other
because each wants to win, ie, a stochastic process rather than one guided
by design.