Liberals: Moderates vs. Progressives

[9-10ths_Penguin]

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.

FYI: the entire reason that moderates are able to negotiate with conservatives is because of the progressives in the background.

The people at the extreme ends of the mainstream define the Overton window. Progressives also represent a WATNA for conservatives: if they don't work with moderates, they'll have to deal with progressives; that gives moderates power that they wouldn't otherwise have.

 

[exchemist]

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.

But who is this "elite", in reality - assuming they exist? One can define all sorts of "elites" if one wants to indulge grievance politics.

My contention is that the people who benefit disproportionately from todays's neoliberal economic setup are the people at the top of companies, who are able to command absurd levels of remuneration and call in aid a non-existent "market" in top people to justify it. But the Right in many countries has succeeded in getting hoi polloi to hate an entirely different "elite", namely the bien-pensant urban liberal pinkoes, i.e. the left of centre people who fall into the trap of getting preoccupied with identity politics etc.

 

[PureX]

Without the "progressives", our society would never actually progress. Because the conservatives only want to maintain and protect the status quo. And what they consider "progress" is really just further entrenchment of existing power structure. While the "liberals" talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. They like to presume unto themselves the high moral ground but then they never really want to let anyone else up there with them.

It's the progressives that want to actually focus on change. Real changes that have a real effect on people's lives. And that's why they face so much resistance from those in power, conservative OR liberal.

 

[icehorse]

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.

Can you say more about what you think the OP's ideology is? I can't discern much of that from the OP.

 

[Samael_Khan]

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

What do you mean by "squad"?

 

[Sunstone]

Can you say more about what you think the OP's ideology is? I can't discern much of that from the OP.

I was not addressing Spink's personal ideology. I was addressing the predominant ideology among liberals -- the people Spinks calls 'moderates'. Google neoliberalism.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

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.

Thanks. That is somewhat the point of this thread - to help me understand the fact pattern that goes beyond my own bubble experience.

Is there an example of such a poll you can point me to? The trouble with polls is it does not necessarily translate to winning the states / electoral college. The US is not a simple democracy, a simply majority is not enough. It must be a geographically diverse majority. This is where progressivism struggles, as I see it. My pragmatic view is that the risk of losing to Republicans far outweighs the risk of strategically compromising on some progressive initiatives in order to actually win - not just poll well. Actually win.

 

[icehorse]

I was not addressing Spink's personal ideology. I was addressing the predominant ideology among liberals -- the people Spinks calls 'moderates'. Google neoliberalism.

It strikes me that in this thread there is a soup of ideas that are somewhat related, but also somewhat in different categories. When I searched on neoliberalism I found ideas like free market vs capitalist. But the thread is also talking about things like universal health care and climate change which - strictly speaking - are orthogonal to economic systems.

 

[icehorse]

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 would make a distinction here between:

- what you think ought to happen
- how to best go about accomplishing those goals.

In other words, you might be in favor of universal healthcare, but think that Bernie's approach won't work.

 

[Sunstone]

The dynamic here is that the liberals (what the OP calls 'moderates') have historically used the progressives as bogymen to threaten the right with. That is, they position themselves as the 'reasonable compromise' between the progressive wing of American politics and the right wing(s) of American politics. Then they come up with a 'compromise' that is spun as 'reasonable' but is actually targeted at defusing the political pressure from the progressives for change.

In essence, liberals want to maintain the status quo and aim to do so by putting mere band aides on every problem there is with the status quo. They don't solve problems, they do as little as they can do, and still squeak by. But what has that strategy gotten America in the past 40 years? A break-down in the social contract that led after World War II to the largest, most prosperous middle class in world history -- plus a disgruntled under-class willing to vote for the likes of Donald Trump. Liberal politics has failed America. e.g. we're the only advanced nation without some form of universal health care; our middle class is shrinking; wages for the poor are stagnant or in decline; we are falling in upward socio-economic mobility, etc. etc. etc.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

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

Yes, but how does that help us WIN? I agree with you but realistically, Americans in Texas, Florida and Ohio are not going to vote for what they consider to be a “far left” candidate no matter how disconnected that perspective is from the rest of the world.

Liberals have to figure out how to advance their agenda and persuade the voters we have in America, not the voters we want to have.

As an example of this: I think Mayor Pete is onto something when he goes on Fox News and tries to win over what he calls “future former Republicans”. I think telling Americans we are not eliminating private insurance is much more likely to actually result in a public health option (“Medicare for all”) that can pass in Congress, rather than pushing to eliminate private plans which the progressive wing wants. Half of America will cry “socialism!” and make comparisons to Venezuela if we pursue the progressive plan and nothing will get done - no matter how correct we think we are.

 

[Valjean]

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'.

We liberals and progressives aren't advocating anything that hasn't worked elsewhere. We're not advocating anything new or experimental.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

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.

Thanks. But is it a geographically diverse majority? The US is a federal system. It’s not enough if 60% of Americans favor something, you need 60% of the states. And how strong is that majority, under what parameters?

And if support for the things progressives want is so strong, why hasn’t it happened already?

I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m just skeptical and want to understand what I’m missing / where my reasoning is misplaced.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. About half of Americans would support a ban on fracking - 51%. But you can assume that a lot of that support is in states like NY and California - states Democrats are going to win anyway, where we have representatives in Congress anyway. What would Democrats have gained by making a ban on fracking their official platform? They would gain little additional support in Congress or in a Presidential election beyond what they already have anyway. While hurting themselves in swing states. To pass legislation you need to get Democrats elected in Midwestern and southern states, OR you need to persuade a few Republicans to jump sides and support you. By going after a ban on fracking, you risk losing everything - more Republican victories, and less ability to push more actionable initiatives, like rejoining the Paris Agreement or passing a national cap and trade program (without a ban).

Having 51% of Americans support something in a Gallup poll is nowhere close to actually getting it passed in Congress. It has to be a strong, geographically diverse coalition of support given the system we have in the US. This is an example of progressives pushing a losing issue for little gain, at great risk. (I hasten to acknowledge attitudes about this may be changing quickly)

See what I’m saying? Do my concerns make sense or do you think I’m off base?

Source: Opposition to Fracking Mounts in the U.S.

 

[Stevicus]

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.

I didn't say it was designed or planned. But it is influenced and controlled by those who control it. Competing interests doesn't imply different interests. The bottom line is that the political rivalries only really matter to those at the top. To the average citizen, it doesn't really matter which duke, mafia chieftain, or tinpot dictator rules the fiefdom. It's all the same at the bottom.

I never said that they weren't competing with each other and that each side wants to win, but it only really matters to those at the top. When the general public gets suckered into it and believing that the issues of the elite should also be their issues - that's when we have problems such as the kind we're having now.

The problem for the elite nowadays is that their canned agenda doesn't sell as well as it used to, primarily because the internet has opened up the playing field to so many other competing interests, large and small. The elite are no longer able to control the game as much as they once did, and that's what frightens them.

 

[Heyo]

Thanks. That is somewhat the point of this thread - to help me understand the fact pattern that goes beyond my own bubble experience.

Is there an example of such a poll you can point me to? The trouble with polls is it does not necessarily translate to winning the states / electoral college. The US is not a simple democracy, a simply majority is not enough. It must be a geographically diverse majority. This is where progressivism struggles, as I see it. My pragmatic view is that the risk of losing to Republicans far outweighs the risk of strategically compromising on some progressive initiatives in order to actually win - not just poll well. Actually win.

I wasn't referring to election polls. I was referring to policy polls.
Here Are 7 ‘Left Wing’ Ideas (Almost) All Americans Can Get Behind

It is a somewhat paradoxical situation that people asked about specific policies without mentioning party politics, tend to be very progressive. One example is marijuana legalisation which has been on the ballot in several states and usually wins. The same goes with universal health care and gun legislation.
But when it comes to vote for those who stand for those ideas, the support inexplicably dwindles.
Progressive ideas are popular - progressives are not.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

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!​

That’s a strong argument conceptually. But let’s get specific. What specific progressive issue should Biden/Harris have adopted which would have resulted in creating more “excessive discomfort among communities of white privilege” than a Trump/Pence victory? Should he have supported getting rid of private insurance? Ban on fracking? Defunding the police?

Which of these initiatives could Biden/Harris have promoted without risking a Trump victory in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin? How does losing to Trump help the progressive agenda?

I’m open to being persuaded - tell me where I’m going wrong here.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

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!

Thank you, very well articulated. I tend to agree - not because I want to, but simply because my understanding of the facts compels it. But there may be facts I haven’t appreciated and that’s why I’m inviting progressives on this thread to help me see where I’ve gone wrong.

 

[exchemist]

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.

Yes I'm sure that feels strange. As a European, I confess I do think there are some things about the US that are backward, most notably capital punishment and the absence of proper state-guaranteed health provision for all citizens. You may think the European approach to those things is an experiment, but I can envisage no circumstances short of total collapse of civilisation in which either would ever change.

Where I think I would agree with you is that we ought to question by what right the Left (if you see what I mean ) associates itself with progress. They seem to have hijacked the term "progressive". I remember being surprised and annoyed when I first heard Gordon Brown sanctimoniously going on about something he called a "progressive consensus". It took me a while to work out that what he meant by that was a leftwing consensus! The notion that leftwing solutions inevitably represent "progress" strikes me as incredible chutzpah, given the abject failure of full socialism, wherever it has been tried, over a century or more.

As for hatred of our own culture, yes, this is exactly the perception that has led to the reaction that has brought us Bozo's English nationalism, and which in part animates Brexit. Mind you, the Americans have not been shy in speaking of the the evils of colonialism to make us guilty about our past. Now we have to endure another bout of hair-shirt self-flagellation over our involvement in slavery, again courtesy of the BLM movement in the USA. While such things are strictly about seamy aspects of our history, rather than our culture per se, one can get the sense that we are not much encouraged to feel proud of anything. And that causes a reaction, undoubtedly.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

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.

Thanks for the example, Joe. Two questions: (1) what percentage of Americans do you think “have a brain” when tens of millions voted for Donald Trump twice, and tens of thousands enthusiastically attended his rallies? Do you think that segment is likely to support “no moderate compromise on this” and do you think legislation can be passed without at least some of that support?

(2) You don’t think a public option / Medicare for All is a significant moderate compromise on this?

I guess that was more than two questions, sorry.

 

[Audie]

What do you mean by "squad"?

Google " the squad"