I wonder why they don’t want anyone to call them what they really are? I wonder why they won’t label themselves what they really are?
Progressive candidates seek distance from label
They’re pushing for environmental reforms, embracing single-payer health care and calling for more government assistance. But increasingly, many are reluctant to call themselves “progressives.”
Left-wing candidates from Pennsylvania to North Carolina to Missouri are shying away from the P-word on the campaign trail, in messaging and online fundraising, and even in media blitzes, signaling an attempt to rebrand their wing of the party as Democrats debate how to win the midterm elections.
On paper, many mesh with Capitol Hill’s top leftists. Some support easing the country’s reliance on fossil fuels and restarting discussions around “Medicare for All.” Others want to accept more Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion of their country. Most would like President Biden to use executive action to give Americans more aid across the board.
Their hesitation to be defined as such, however, is new.
The article attempts to portray Progressives as those that push for progress, moving forward. Which is a load of mule fritters. These people are Nice Fascists, meaning, again, not that they’re nice, but, that they are doing this For Your Own Good. Instituting lots and lots of government FYOG. Controlling you. Which is fine when mom and dad do it when you’re a child. Not so good when you’re an adult in a nation founded on Freedom.
While some high-profile contenders still use the moniker, others want to be thought of in different terms. Pennsylvania’s Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who’s seeking the party’s nomination for a coveted Senate seat, prefers a different word: populist.
Progressivism sounds great, right up till you consider the implications and how it negatively effects your life.
Former North Carolina state Sen. Erica Smith, who suspended her Senate bid in November to instead try to replace retiring Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D) in the House, is using the term “New Deal” to describe her place within the party.
She’s pretty much a far left wacko along the lines of AOC. But, really, Progressives are far, far right on the political scale. The further right you move the more governmental control there is. U.S. Conservatives are smackdab in the middle of the scale.
But unlike the quartet of senators from liberal bastions, these 2022 Democratic candidates aren’t situated in safe, deep-blue states and districts. Fetterman, Kunce and Smith are each competing in battlegrounds that could determine which party controls the Senate and House — Pennsylvania, Missouri and North Carolina — making their choice of rhetoric more consequential, some Democrats say.
Hence why they’re lying about who they really are. G.K. Butterfield represents NC’s 1st District, very rural, which comprises parts that are very much GOP and very much Democrat. It’s almost 45% black, and 43% white. But, it isn’t close. No Republican has been elected since 1883 to the House. The northeast section very much sways the vote. It has gone Democrat for president biggly every time. So, why would Smith eschew the term Progressive? Their internal polling must not be going well on the agenda.
They’ve been dinged not only as “socialists” by the GOP, but as too left to win general elections by some in their own party. For months, moderate Democrats have levied critiques against liberals with aspirations of defeating long-standing members. Even Biden has made it clear he believes a return to the center is necessary.
“It is a reaction to progressivism somehow being attached to socialism or communism,” said Bullard. “You have a lot of apprehension, regression, people who just are scared.”
Well, because it is like socialism and communism. Not the Political Theory 101 definition, but, the in practice one, which is actually far into the Authoritarian model. But, then they get elected and vote as Modern Socialist goons.
Our tremendous host began:
They haven’t been calling themselves what they really are for a long time now; ‘progressive’ was itself a smokescreen for what they really are, which is socialist.
No it isn’t: Republicans have been labeling their Democratic opponents as ‘liberals’ for decades, as a campaign tactic, while the Democratic candidates ran away from that label. Republicans, on the other hand, have not shied away from the label ‘conservative,’ and have, in most cases, embraced it.
We do have some Democrats, in very safe leftist districts, deliberately campaign to the left, knowing that the real contests for them are in the Democratic primaries, not the general elections.
Here in the Bluegrass State, we had Amy McGrath Henderson, seeking the Sixth District congressional seat in 2018, telling people at a fundraiser in Massachusetts that, “I am further left, I am more progressive, than anyone in the state of Kentucky,” then trying to run as more moderate when in Kentucky. In 2020, vying for the Democratic senatorial nomination, she ran to the right of state Representative Charles “From the Hood to the Holler” Booker (D-Louisville),and won that nomination, and then got stomped by Senator Mitch McConnell in the general election.
This year, we have Mr Booker campaigning for the Democratic nomination to run against Senator Rand Paul, and he, at least, isn’t running away from his hard-left positions, and (probably) will not in the general election campaign if he wins the nomination.
He might as well run hard left in the general election campaign. In 2014, Alison Lundergan Grimes, and 2020, Mrs Henderson, tried to run as more moderate Democrats against Senator McConnell, and both were utterly stomped. Dr Paul had landslide wins over Jack Conway, a moderate Democrat and state Attorney General, in 2010, and Jim Gray, a homosexual Democrat and Mayor of Lexington, in 2016. Democrats trying to soft-peddle their positions haven’t had a lot of success in the Bluegrass State, so what the heck, might as well run as what they are.
Then there’s
Beta“Beto” O’Rourke, running against Senator Ted Cruz in Texas, with this message:Not sure how well that message is going to fly in the Lone Star State. Maybe he can get Will Thomas to campaign with him?
That’s okay Beatoff you perv, only Democrats mess with trans kids. Hell, Democrats make kids trans and are proud of it. Can’t get more perverse than that.
FJB
I agree. Progressive is the wrong term.
How about “communist?”
Marx, himself, used that term interchangeably with “socialist.”
Word salad has been a go-to for the communists since Marx. And earlier, frankly.
from the conservative The Hill:
Mr Kunce, a Marine, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is NOT an AOC-type “progressive” so why should he call himself that? Mr Kunce appears on FOX News as an arms expert, for gawd’s sakes. Kunce DOES support that Congresspersons dissociate themselves from stocks and the stock market since they often have an unfair advantage.
Anyway, the GOPhers have worked hard to make liberal and progressive dirty words. It worked.