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<td>Defining "Progressive" and Spotting the Impostors</td>
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<td>Fri, 25 Jul 2014 16:19:09 +0000</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">From: </th>
<td>David Sladky <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:tanstl@hotmail.com"><tanstl@hotmail.com></a></td>
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<div dir="ltr"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/25/defining-progressive-and-spotting-the-impostors/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/25/defining-progressive-and-spotting-the-impostors/</a><br>
<br>
<font style="font-size: 16pt;" size="4">The Political Charlatans
of the Left</font><br>
<font style="font-size: 20pt;" size="5"><b>Defining
"Progressive" and Spotting the Impostors</b></font><br>
by ANDREW TILLETT-SAKS<br>
<br>
"The framework of thought is consciously manipulated by an
effective choice and reshaping of terminology so as to make it
difficult to understand what’s happening in the world, to
prevent people from perceiving reality, because if they
perceived it they might not like it and act to change it."<br>
<br>
– Noam Chomsky<br>
<br>
This election season, millions of Americans will use the terms
Progressive or Liberal. I will have no idea what any of them
mean.<br>
<br>
George Orwell wrote, "The words democracy, socialism, freedom,
patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several
different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one
another." Were Orwell writing in 2014, he would include Liberal
and Progressive as well. In the regular frenzy for votes,
politicians with wide-ranging politics will fly both banners.
Despite no common definition or clear understanding of what the
terms imply, millions of well-intentioned voters will follow the
labels and deliver their votes.<br>
<br>
The lack of clear language on the American Left prevents
coherent thought and action. Because the Left cannot clearly
define what it means to be Progressive or Liberal, it cannot
effectively identify its friends nor its enemies. Wolves in
sheep’s clothing reside in elected offices nationwide.
Well-intentioned, egalitarian voters elect self-proclaimed
Progressives and Liberals who proceed to desecrate workers and
equality in return.<br>
<br>
Modern Americans use Progressive and Liberal with a wide range
of meanings, many of them contradictory.<br>
<br>
The public brands politicians far apart on the ideological
spectrum, from Joe Lieberman to Bernie Sanders, as Liberal.
Starkly contrasting intellectuals, from Paul Krugman to Noam
Chomsky, also commonly receive the label.<br>
<br>
Progressive is no different. Political groups and ideas as
different as Bill Clinton’s Reaganesque New Democrats and
Michael Harrington’s Democratic Socialists of America
self-identify as Progressive. Competition is fierce amongst all
varieties of Democrats to self-brand as Progressive—every last
candidate in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries,
from Dennis Kucinich to Barack Obama to Hilary Clinton to Bill
Richardson, self-identified as a Progressive in campaign
literature.<br>
<br>
Progressive and Liberal are consistently used to distance
oneself from Conservative, making it clear what the terms are
not. What they are, however, is indiscernible based on their
rainbow of representatives.<br>
<br>
The most defining trait of the 21st century politician is the
extent to which they believe free market capitalism should be
regulated. The Conservative Right attacks the very existence of
government in advocacy of laissez faire capitalism, while the
Left ostensibly promotes regulation of the market’s excesses and
non-market social welfare programs.<br>
<br>
Despite this being the key dividing line in American politics
and central to most hot-button political issues, the primary
labels of the American Left have no fixed meaning on the matter.
Liberal and Progressive refer to politicians and intellectuals
all over the map on regulating free market capitalism. It is
impossible to predict where a modern Liberal or Progressive will
fall on bellwether economic issues such as trade unions, social
welfare programs, progressive taxation, public schools, etc.
Oft-described Liberal and Progressive Bill Clinton deconstructed
social welfare programs and championed NAFTA, while similarly
described Barack Obama completely abandoned his pre-election
promise to trade unions to pass the Employee Free Choice Act and
has pushed vigorously for passage of the newest free trade
agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement.
Yet Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, also frequently referred to
as Progressive and Liberal, relentlessly fights free trade
agreements and refers to himself as a socialist economically!
There exists no label on the mainstream Left that indicates
support for restraining free market capitalism; its champions
and opponents alike populate the ranks of our Progressives and
Liberals.<br>
<br>
There is a disastrous consequence to the mainstream Left’s lack
of descriptive precision: elected officials routinely attacking
the very Leftists and workers who voted them into power. The
traditional, racism-fueled American political conundrum involves
workers supporting conservative politicians explicitly against
their own interests. Our loose terminology creates a different
conundrum, politicians who win election based on ostensibly
anti-corporate, pro-equality platforms only to betray their
working class and Leftist supporters. Electoral politics for
Democratic voters today is generally a game of bait-and-switch:
Leftist rhetorical bait followed by conservative economic
policy.<br>
<br>
The effectiveness of this bait-and-switch has fostered the rise
of a new class of pseudo-Left, neoliberal charlatans nationwide.
Waves of these charlatan politicians continue to ascend,
effectively dominating the Democratic Party. The Charlatans
generally support liberal social issues, such as formal civil
rights (i.e. marriage equality), basic women’s rights (i.e. the
right to have an abortion), and racial ‘diversity’ (i.e. formal
equality and ‘color-blindness’). However, they break from
traditional Leftist economic positions. The Charlatans often
scapegoat and battle worker unions, lead the charge in
‘reforming’ and ‘marketizing’ (privatizing) the public school
system, and generally advocate supply-side, trickle-down
economics in the name of ‘job creation’ and a better ‘business
climate’.<br>
<br>
The trademark of the Charlatans is to drench everything they do,
progressive or conservative, in traditional Leftist rhetoric.
They stoke Leftist enthusiasm by breathlessly emphasizing
liberal social issues, while quickly glossing over their
conservative economic stances with cliché rhetoric. They attack
public schools in the name of racial equality and poor, minority
students. They defend de facto racial inequality by celebrating
token minority representatives amongst the rich and powerful—the
act even works best when the Charlatan themselves is a racial
minority, their mere presence projected as an inherently
Progressive cause (see Barack Obama, Cory Booker, etc). They
wage war on the last bastion of the American labor movement,
public sector unions, in the name of improving the economy for
the poor and unemployed. In sum, the Charlatans are masters of
effecting inequality in the name of equality. Lost in the
whirlwind of rhetoric, blinded by the shine of liberal social
issues, most well-intentioned egalitarians take the bait.<br>
<br>
Defining more clearly what it means to be a Progressive or
Liberal—the two most popular labels of the mainstream American
Left—would go a long way in stopping the Charlatan swindle.
Wolves in sheep’s clothing can do no harm if they are spotted at
the gates. As long as Leftists articulate mere vague notions of
who they are and what they believe, a bit of euphemistic verbal
gymnastics will permit politicians of different shapes to
squeeze into the mold. If the Left speaks clearly and
specifically about what it stands for, no amount of rhetorical
flourish will stop those with contrasting politics from being
sniffed out. If Leftists define themselves as believing in a
robust public education system, no politician could gain their
support without explicitly supporting full funding for our
public schools. If Leftists define themselves as standing for
democracy at work, no politician could gain their support
without declaring support for public and private sector worker
unions. And so on.<br>
<br>
What exactly the definitions are for each term is less important
than having any clear definitions and common understanding
whatsoever. What it means to be a Progressive or a Liberal is
arbitrary—at least I have no interest in debating the history or
import of the labels themselves. The goal is to give them any
common, fixed meaning and to stop the neo-liberal swindle.<br>
<br>
In this spirit, I propose that Liberal be used only in its
classic sense, referring only to those who believe in both
social and economic liberalism. This implies support for civil
rights and belief in the free market capitalist economy.
Liberals shall be those who do not believe in perverting the
free market. They oppose racist, sexist, and homophobic
discrimination (which are all, in the end, extra-market forces).
They also oppose trade unions, strong welfare programs, and
progressive taxation (also extra-market forces). They preach
equality of opportunity, not outcome. They speak a subtle
variation of trickle-down economics, advocating improving the
‘business climate’ in the name of growing the economy for all.
They advocate for competition in all aspects of society, from
the labor market to schools to the healthcare industry.<br>
<br>
Progressive should be used for those who believe that the free
market must be profoundly restrained to alleviate inequality.
Progressives should believe strongly in trade unions as a
necessary counterbalance to corporate power. They should
advocate taxing the wealthy at much higher rates,
nationalization of essential social needs such as education and
healthcare, and strong public welfare programs to address
poverty. Progressives believe more in equality of outcome than
mere equality of opportunity. They do not seek to accommodate
wealthy employers, but support more Keynesian direct worker
assistance such as higher minimum wage requirement and increased
unionization. Progressives do not focus on simply ‘growing the
economy’ or ‘job creation’ with faith that this will trickle
down to the working class. Instead, they inquire directly to the
conditions of the poor and believe it is the role of government
to step in with support.<br>
<br>
With the terms fixed as such, no politician could claim either
label nor win the support of proponents without living up the to
clear criteria. Liberal and Progressive could no longer be used
interchangeably or meaninglessly. Most tangibly, with clear
lines drawn for those who do and do not believe in regulating
the excesses of free market capitalism, the ascendant Charlatans
could no longer use lofty, vague, and disingenuous rhetoric to
win the support of Progressives who believe in regulating the
ugly excesses of the free market. Genuine Progressives could
more easily identify the Charlatans as the neoliberal corporate
lackeys which they are, and seek sincerely Progressive
alternatives.<br>
<br>
Socialists will make the noteworthy quibbles that they already
possess a perfectly lucid label for the Left (Socialist) and
that neither Progressives nor Liberals represent a genuine
anti-capitalist Left. They may very well be correct on both
accounts, but there is utility nonetheless for Progressives and
Socialists alike who are engaged in real political struggle in
encouraging a more coherent Progressive movement.<br>
<br>
The political crisis of treacherous, charlatan politicians on
the Left is obviously the result of much more than imprecise
language. Lack of organizational unity, more than anything,
causes the crisis. This disorganization is likely the root of
the confused language as well. Yet, as Orwell stated in his call
for clear political language seventy years ago, "an effect can
become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the
same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely."
Those who consider themselves Progressives should demand clarity
whenever and wherever either term is used. Until we think and
speak more clearly, the Charlatans will continue to deceive,
Liberals will continue to co-opt Progressives, and a society
based on Progressive values will become further and further from
reality.<br>
<br>
Andrew Tillett-Saks is an organizer with UNITE HERE Local 217.
He can be reached at: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:atillett-saks@unitehere.org">atillett-saks@unitehere.org</a>. Twitter:
@AndrewTSaks.<br>
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