Why Don't Progressives Do This?

[H4run]

must stand up for minorities (and effectively hate white people) and support diversity;

I never know it's a known fact that progressive effectively "hate" white people. What I know it's a common cheap straw-man that the alt right love to use.

So is this mean progressive as ideology are lean to "anti-white"?

I would love to know how. Especially from someone who is able "balanced" themselves beyond the dichotomy of left and right.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I get what Zard is saying, that a representative needs to fit the district. So a progressive message will only work in regions that have progressive values.

Ms. Queen here also nails the problem, that some districts haven't yet been convinced that progressivism will help them.

I don't know if importing a firebrand would work, it might? Because that way they would get air time. After that, they just need to be convincing. We have so much carpetbagging in politics already, it's certainly an idea.

I do know that constantly moving to the centre doesn't work.
We've been doing that since Clinton and Blair. arguably before, and all it does is allow the right to move the centre further rightward.

The left could be cleverer about picking its fights and not needlessly antagonising those it needs to win over (more convincing, less condemning) but even centrists need to stand for something other than just winning.

 

[Zardnaar]

I do know that constantly moving to the centre doesn't work.
We've been doing that since Clinton and Blair. arguably before, and all it does is allow the right to move the centre further rightward.

The left could be cleverer about picking its fights and not needlessly antagonising those it needs to win over (more convincing, less condemning) but even centrists need to stand for something other than just winning.

That's a possibility but existing evidence we have shows progressives can't win or can only win when the right really screws up.

The old liberals from 60's & 70s probably wouldn't count as liberals by modern standards.

You have realisti goals and pie in sky ideas that won't pass muster anywhere on the planet.

 

[Ajidica]

The old liberals from 60's & 70s probably wouldn't count as liberals by modern standards.

Yeah, they would be considered communists.

 

[AmazonQueen]

That's a possibility but existing evidence we have shows progressives can't win or can only win when the right really screws up.

The old liberals from 60's & 70s probably wouldn't count as liberals by modern standards.

You have realisti goals and pie in sky ideas that won't pass muster anywhere on the planet.

What evidence?
Apart from Corbyn what progressive candidates for president/prime minister have the US and UK had in the last 40 years. There have been a lot of elections lost by centrist Democrat and Labour leaders in that time.

 

[Akka]

Identity politics is getting out of control. The definition what is progressive and conservative is becoming ridiculously narrow.

I'd say that's only a partial view of the problem. The problem is polarization and a rising fanaticism, with the definitions becoming increasingly narrow to be "one of us" and increasingly large to be "one of them".

Be it called a "socialist" (as if the word was an insult, which in itself is pretty telling) or a "fascist", as soon as you don't agree 100 % with everything someone says or you don't share 100 % of the viewpoint of a subject, you're declared the enemy and made a strawman. And the US, being so highly visible, cause this dumb manichean culture war to expand outside its border and is starting to pollute the rest of the world with it. I hope that we can stop the madness in check before we reach the same point, but I'm not very confident.

Yeah, they would be considered communists.

By the Republicans, yeah. On these boards they would be called bigots and fascists.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, they would be considered communists.

Heh in the fevered dreams of the GoP perhaps.

Progressive +for the time) legislation was also passed by people who would fail purity tests.

Nuance has no place these days.

 

[sophie]

EDIT: @Hygro is it though? My current House district was one by a centrist Democrat in 2018 after almost 60 years in Republican control. He retained the seat in 2020 running on a 'moderate' health care, education, and good government platform.

 

[Zardnaar]

What evidence?
Apart from Corbyn what progressive candidates for president/prime minister have the US and UK had in the last 40 years. There have been a lot of elections lost by centrist Democrat and Labour leaders in that time.

It's not just the UK though it's Aussie, Canada, USA, NZ as well.

Every now and then various factions in Labour throw out a leader from the one of those factions but they get annhilated at the polls.

Happened in UK with Corbyn.

The old school labour socialist types can't win.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

I never know it's a known fact that progressive effectively "hate" white people. What I know it's a common cheap straw-man that the alt right love to use.

So is this mean progressive as ideology are lean to "anti-white"?

I would love to know how. Especially from someone who is able "balanced" themselves beyond the dichotomy of left and right.

I think it's telling that in sendos' belief that being anti-racist is somehow intrinsically anti-white

 

[H4run]

I think it's telling that in sendos' belief that being anti-racist is somehow intrinsically anti-white

That's the only way to put it, because the other race endangered white people, both in cultural or existential mean.

 

[Ajidica]

Heh in the fevered dreams of the GoP perhaps.

Progressive +for the time) legislation was also passed by people who would fail purity tests.

Nuance has no place these days.

Even the Democrats would probably be calling them Communists. In America we had the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, which even in its watered down milquetoast language called for the US government and Federal Reserve to include full employment as a primary goal of economic policy. The Great Society Programs were all massive expansions of government spending to quite literally remake American society. Nixon's imposing of price controls to control inflation and keep food affordable was a largely bipartisan action.
In the UK, the Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath was setting five year economic programs, pushing for state intervention to stimulate and develop the economy, and direct government intervention in the housing market.

 

[AmazonQueen]

It's not just the UK though it's Aussie, Canada, USA, NZ as well.

Every now and then various factions in Labour throw out a leader from the one of those factions but they get annhilated at the polls.

Happened in UK with Corbyn.

The old school labour socialist types can't win.

Centrists don't win either, they just surrender slowly.

 

[Zardnaar]

Even the Democrats would probably be calling them Communists. In America we had the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, which even in its watered down milquetoast language called for the US government and Federal Reserve to include full employment as a primary goal of economic policy. The Great Society Programs were all massive expansions of government spending to quite literally remake American society. Nixon's imposing of price controls to control inflation and keep food affordable was a largely bipartisan action.
In the UK, the Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath was setting five year economic programs, pushing for state intervention to stimulate and develop the economy, and direct government intervention in the housing market.

Yeah that's before the neo libs hijacked everything.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah, they would be considered communists.

Can you imagine the new deal passing now? Social security? All that?

 

[Ajidica]

Colin Peterson should not be on that list as there is no way his district was a 'swing district'. The only reason it remained blue for so long (and Peterson was basically a Republican by the end, notably voting against impeachment) was because as Chairman/Ranking Member of Ag Committee, Peterson was in a good place to bribe farmers.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The image doesn't say if the people who defeated the various candidates were themselves pro-M4A/GND or against it.

It is also a causation/correlation problem and possibly this data set has sample bias.

Edit: And I am for M4A and GND, to be clear.

 

[sophie]

The argument being refuted here isn't that adopting progressive policies automatically guarantees a win, but that endorsing progressive policies is an automatic death sentence in swing districts. It's clearly more complicated that that.

 

[El_Machinae]

The left could be cleverer about picking its fights and not needlessly antagonising those it needs to win over (more convincing, less condemning) but even centrists need to stand for something other than just winning.

Ostensibly, it would be a tolerable solution to a looming problem. Or a ratcheting solution to a looming problem. So, "things can't be fixed over-night, but will get better" would be centrist, no?

 

[Quintillus]

Why? Well, probably because Bernie likes his houses in Vermont, and AOC has friends in NYC.

But on the broader topic, I agree that there is a divide between the left wing and the center wing of the Democratic Party in the U.S. Talking with my (Democratic) friend in the Pacific Northwest, the norms of what's acceptable to say in the cities of Washington and Oregon are much more strict than what's acceptable in a reliably Democratic midwestern city. Identity politics being one of the key differences. While stereotyped (and, as Bugfatty300 points out, potentially biased), sendos's list is not all that inaccurate for what my friend describes up there. In the midwest, Democrats tend to be more issues focused than identity politics focused.

I prefer the approach of advocating for equal rights and equal economic opportunities without demonizing the existing side. Call out bad actors, yes, but don't cast entire groups as the problem. Identity politics, IMO, tends to promote tribalization and an "us vs them" mentality, regardless of where it pops up on the political spectrum.