Interesting take on Progressivism

[BigBearJohn]

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Progressivism is a political movement that represents the interests of ordinary people in their roles as taxpayers, consumers, employees, citizens, and parents. To coin a phrase, progressivism champions government "of the people, by the people, for the people."Given this mission, one might expect all democracies to be made up predominantly of one or another Progressive parties. Unfortunately, this isn't the case.

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Progressives are typically portrayed in the corporate mass media as being "far left," a characterization which is misleading. It should never be forgotten that virtually the whole of the mass media are owned by the ultrawealthy, and objective studies have shown, for example, that corporate representatives outnumber labor representives in the mass media by enormous margins (on the order of 27 to 1).


Thus, the impression that Progressives are "far left" arises largely because the elitist mass media simplistically, and falsely, portrays American politics as being a one-dimensional split between "liberals" and "conservatives." In fact, American politics are far more complex, and can't be properly understood unless we add (at least) one more dimension: elitism vs. populism. When we do add this additional dimension, it becomes clearer that many self-styled "conservatives" are in fact ultrawealthy economic elitists who have little in common with cultural conservatives or cultural liberals, and that their distance from the political center is much greater by far than the distance of Progressives, whose views, when accurately represented, are far more mainstream than those of virtually any elitist. (See the linked diagram for the true political spectrum.) Indeed, polls have shown that many of the most important Progressive goals are endorsed by large majorities of the American populace on both the left and the right (as high as 95%).

This misportrayal of Progressivism has been intentionally cultivated because US economic elites typically seek to exploit highly emotional "wedge" issues on which cultural conservatives and cultural liberals differ most, so as to elicit the political and economic support of cultural conservatives. For this reason, it has become customary for pseudoconservative elitist politicians to pose as strong backers of American values. Yet sadly, when this type of individual is elected, cultural liberals and cultural conservatives both lose out, and the most fundamental American values are undermined.

MORE: http://www.progressiveliving.org/progressivism.htm

(emphasis added by BBJ)

[RKP5637]

1. Excellent analysis IMO! Thanks for posting! n/t

[saras]

2. Excellent. And it also explains why DU is so often anti-democratic and anti-progressive