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I think if you ask most people what the difference is between a liberal and a progressive, at least colloquially in the current political context, they'd say a progressive is a liberal who's too afraid to stand by a label that's been vilified by the right for so many decades. So liberal, progressive, I really don't care. I want us, as a nation, to do the right thing whenever possible. And I honestly think that nominating Bernie Sanders would have been the wrong thing. Not only would he be less likely to win a general election. He would also, simply, not be a very good President. He would give liberals/progressives/Democrats/whatever, a bad name.
As for "progressives need to effect change" being cynical --- maybe. But more importantly, it would seem to be a self-evident fact. Maybe we define the term differently (I guess that's where we started on this), but I would hope that any reasonable definition of "progressive" would involve progress.
Mynoriti mentioned some of my other famous peeves above. Indeed: I mock people relentlessly when they claim to have uncovered new and exciting evidence against evolution or the big bang, or when they claim global warming is a hoax. This asshole behavior naturally aligns me against the irrational forces that drive so much of the conservative movement.
But also: I don't think that my aura gives me supernatural powers, I don't think buying organic, or avoiding GMO, is better for my health or for the environment, I don't think fluoride causes cancer or that vaccines cause autism. There are irrational memes suffusing major segments of the progressive movement. I don't pretend that Bernie Sanders holds any of these views (though I'd bet there are clear statistical correlations among his supporters). My point with all this is simply that liberals are not immune to groupthink, mysticism, or naivite. And it's something we need to fight if we want to avoid splintering into the self-destructive (and generally destructive) state into which the conservative movement has fallen.
As far as I'm concerned, Barack Obama is the finest, most honorable, and most skillful American President since FDR. This isn't because he got Shepard Fairey to make a poster about him, or because he got will.i.am to write a tune about him. And the Obama "hope" movement, while emotionally stirring and extremely helpful in achieving his election, is not what made him effective as a President. It never could, considering that it fizzled almost immediately after the inauguration and left him, only a few years later, with all the rest of the government aligned against him.
Barack Obama has been a great President because he's been precise, strategic, and deeply informed on every issue before he acts. He uncovers maneuvers to bring progressive change even when all the levers of conventional governing are blocked. He makes the right decisions on issues even when it takes time for the rest of the country to understand why it's the right thing. Obviously there are isolated issues on which I would disagree with him and/or his administration, but I respect him because I know that his first priority is to do the right thing and to understand WHY it's the right thing. He is a rational President, first and foremost --- a technocrat. I don't get as much of that feeling from Hillary (though certainly more than I do from her husband). But I get none of that sense about Bernie. I think he says what he says because he thinks it's what a progressive is supposed to say. And I think a lot of his supporters admire him merely because he says what they think a progressive is supposed to say. It is precisely the same kind of mindless groupthink that gives us GMO-free labels, and, yes, the Tea Party.
So that's what I am, that's what I think. I don't know if it would satisfy the judges of liberalism, progressivism, moderation, whatever. But I'm happy to own it.
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