Why Do Progressives Keep Shooting One Another?
It’s become a common habit in this country to easily interchange the words liberaland progressive. In fact, most people can’t even name the difference between the two.
That isn’t quite true for the United States, where, especially within the Democratic Party, progressive is on its way to replacing the term liberal. But not completely. Traditional Democrats comfortable with being called liberal look with alarm at younger progressives, who they see as putting forward destructive policies that could ruin the nation. Progressives believe that the liberal Democratic establishment has already done that and push hard to overcome the prolonged inertia that has kept the Democratic Party back from making the changes required to get the country moving once more. They perceive moderation as giving up.
In Canada, the tensions are more muted, but the debilitating effects are similar. In fact, they might be worse. With three parties in historic contention for power, and with a rising fourth party – the Greens – adding to the mix, things get pretty complicated. The math goes something like this. If the Liberals, NDP and to a lesser degree the Green Party remain in serious contention, then it is likely the Conservatives will prevail. Should either the Liberal or NDP party sink abysmally in the polls, then there’s a good chance one of them will form government.
Sound too simplistic? Maybe, except that the political map continues to play out like that election after election, as when the Liberals won their majority in 2015 when the NDP faltered. With one Conservative party and two liberal or progressive parties, the odds are clear that the progressive votes will split and Conservatives will frequently win. Quibble if you will, but it's how it is. The Conservatives learned this lesson from the 1990s, when the party was split, resulting in a series of Liberal majority governments.
And then there’s the other problem. Progressive Conservatism is waning, in its place a more rampant right-wing element that finds its easier to gain support by enraging their followers instead of enlightening them – heat has replaced light in the journey into the past. Following the Trump playbook, they seek to “take back” their country from what is has become after decades of progressive enhancements and they will do whatever is required to accomplish it. The Conservatives parties, both federally and provincially, no longer hold attraction with progressive Conservatives who find the concepts of hate and division unacceptable.
Yesterday was the kick-off the London Food Bank’s 32ndSpring Food Drive. While the press conference was going on in the warehouse, volunteers milled about, unpacking and sorting items, while all the media spotlights were elsewhere. In moving among them to thank them for their assistance, I came across conservative, progressive and socialist inclined individuals moving together for the sake of a noble cause. They knew the moment they introduced politics that the hegemony would be lost and so they concentrated on their community and the values it represents. I knew some of them and of their increasing inclination to just move away from politics altogether. Those official parties that had historically represented the leanings of those volunteers were now in the process of warfare at the same time these citizens were doing what politics was intended for at its very best – bring people of varying opinions together for the sake of a larger vision.
These volunteers understood what the politicians can’t: the more people attack one another for their politics the less progress will be made.
And this brings us to the vital question: who will save our democracy from its destructive tendencies? If it’s not going to be those political parties so enmeshed in their enmity, perhaps it could be the decent and fair-minded individuals at the food bank yesterday, or those who volunteer at libraries, hospices, schools, sports activities, love their families, grow their businesses and seek to build communities instead of destroying their common ground. They are learning that the moment partisan politics of the caustic variety is tolerated, the quicker will their efforts be wasted as community collapses around them, and the longer those they seek to serve will be forced to wait for justice and fairness.
Progressives are a number of things at the moment – frustrated, despondent, divided, vengeful, even traumatized – but what they aren’t is together. It is equivalent of a circular firing squad. There needs to be reconciliation, forgiveness, self-examination, some visionary ideas around co-sponsorship of important issues and above all an end to the no-win rhetoric that burns everything before it.“Denial is the way people handle what they cannot handle,” noted Shannon Alder and right now we’re all in a state of denial because we can’t find a way forward. If progressivism can’t find common ground, what is it good for, and how else will it move forward?
Next post: Where did Compassionate Conservatism go in our politics?