Is the time ripe for the progressive movement?
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India Walton has a warning message for progressive Democrats during Donald Trump’s second presidency: don’t water down your politics to win over the establishment.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/19/india-walton-interview-progressives-democrats
(Emphasis mine)
One example Walton pointed to was the debate on “defund the police” that did damage to many progressive and centrist campaigns. The real message, which Walton said had been distorted, was about shifting police funding toward social services and mental health care.
Serious question: So why wasn't the distortion rebutted in an effective way? I suspect fear in centrist Democrats (practically synonymous with Dem leadership) kept them from speaking up. There are still (it seems to me) too many Democrats in the center, afraid to embrace progressive ideas and defend them. IMO, they may well have been shooting themselves in the foot all this time. Times have changed, and the party needs to change with them.
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https://bsky.app/profile/grahamformaine.bsky.social/post/3lwqwj3rdgk27
He may sell well in Maine. Collins is likely toast if she runs again.
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As far as a progressive "movement," I can safely say I feel strongly about current events and politics. I have protested once. It was for abortion rights in Sarasota. My cohorts were doing it. I'm not even sure I support my former position about when life begins (I realize there are other issues). I marched in a NYC gay pride parade when I was 21. They pulled me to the front of the parade. They do that when you're 21. What "progressive movement" has there been in which I have involved myself? I'd say, overall, **** all. It's not what you do in a military family. It's not something you do if your life is consumed by staying in the middle class, generally. I have a dearth of experience in this area. There are no protests in my city. There were protests at USF in Tampa. The protesting students were arrested.
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There are two possible reasons, in my mind, why progressive politics haven't been more successful across mainstream America:
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Americans, overall, are fairly conservative in their values.
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So long as money rules our elections, the leaders the people actually want can't get elected.
A good friend of mine ran for Montana's lone House seat at least 20 years ago. He had been a very popular state Senator, and had become head of the EPA under Clinton. A highly respected guy, and well-known here. The opposition ripped him to shreds. He later told me that his experience taught him that it was impossible to successfully run for national office unless you become a whore. Our current Montana delegation certain proves that assessment.
The mainstream Democrats are also whores--just a more watered-down version of whoreishness than the Republicans. They also don't dare step out of line, for fear of losing their backers/funders.
Face it, late-stage capitalism is a failure and has destroyed our country. The corporations/oligarchs run it all. The people no longer have a meaningful voice in politics. If they did, we would have had Bernie Sanders as president in 2016. No wonder voters have become apathetic. They know their vote has become more and more meaningless.
People like AOC and Mamdami can only win in NYC. Do you see first water progressives winning anywhere else? I don't. Do you see the rest of the country becoming more like NYC? I don't.
What is fundamental to this problem is money in politics. We have needed deep election reform even long before the Citizens United decision--that decision just made it far worse.
Now the disenfranchisement of the electorate has gotten so severe, about all we can do is overthrow the government to get our voices back.
If someone has a better solution, I'm all ears.
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I think there’s a bit of a no-true-Scotsman fallacy in India’s thinking. There were plenty of op-eds that were titled things like “No, really, seriously, we mean literally abolish the police” along with disingenuous efforts to describe the very concept of policing as a byproduct of chattel slavery.
Add to this what we saw with progressive DAs that chose not to prosecute whole categories of crimes with predictable results. Hell, even San Francisco recalled their progressive DA over this issue.
Democrats have a real problem - we are on the wrong side of too many 80-20 social issues. Also the party’s entire theory of the case with respect to identity politics was proven spectacularly wrong in 2024.
Until we fix these issues we’ll stay in the wilderness nationally I do believe.
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What Jon said.
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Identity politics has been used to divide and conquer and in even more twisted ways to halt politics based on class identity resulting in economic ruination for a large percentage of the population. We can add to this-- many forms of impoverishment as would naturally result and authoritarianism as the final layer. Yikes.
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So, jon-nyc, about those op-eds which you speak of. Where were the centrist Democrats? Why weren't they penning op-eds explaining the concept in less militant terms? I'll tell you where they were: Distancing themselves. Afraid they'll be labelled radical and apparently fearing they wouldn't be able to defend themselves against such accusations. Cowering in fear of the right, as usual.
I still believe the lesson centrist Democrats need to learn is that it won't work to continue shunning the progressive arm of the party. Party leadership had many opportunities to embrace progressives and work with them over the past decades but chose to distance themselves instead of engaging in dialogue and hashing out what's extreme and what's acceptable and what terms work best.
I'm pretty sure the election was not lost on social issues. The right wants everyone to believe we lost on social issues because it's a wedge they can rely on. Shame on Democrats who play into that narrative. We lost on economic issues--as is almost always the case. The right's playbook is to target a minority, demonize them and work up the conservative base and then accuse the left of harping on social issues when they come to defend the minorities. FTS.
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So, jon-nyc, about those op-eds which you speak of. Where were the centrist Democrats? Why weren't they penning op-eds explaining the concept in less militant terms? I'll tell you where they were: Distancing themselves. Afraid they'll be labelled radical and apparently fearing they wouldn't be able to defend themselves against such accusations. Cowering in fear of the right, as usual.
I still believe the lesson centrist Democrats need to learn is that it won't work to continue shunning the progressive arm of the party. Party leadership had many opportunities to embrace progressives and work with them over the past decades but chose to distance themselves instead of engaging in dialogue and hashing out what's extreme and what's acceptable and what terms work best.
I'm pretty sure the election was not lost on social issues. The right wants everyone to believe we lost on social issues because it's a wedge they can rely on. Shame on Democrats who play into that narrative. We lost on economic issues--as is almost always the case. The right's playbook is to target a minority, demonize them and work up the conservative base and then accuse the left of harping on social issues when they come to defend the minorities. FTS.
@Bernard said in Is the time ripe for the progressive movement?:
So, jon-nyc, about those op-eds which you speak of. Where were the centrist Democrats? Why weren't they penning op-eds explaining the concept in less militant terms? I'll tell you where they were: Distancing themselves. Afraid they'll be labelled radical and apparently fearing they wouldn't be able to defend themselves against such accusations. Cowering in fear of the right, as usual.
Biden did specifically run against the ‘defund the police’ idea while explicitly calling for more community-oriented programs. I would say he steel-manned the (less extreme) concept while reject the label which is and always was repellent to the median voter.
I still believe the lesson centrist Democrats need to learn is that it won't work to continue shunning the progressive arm of the party. Party leadership had many opportunities to embrace progressives and work with them over the past decades but chose to distance themselves instead of engaging in dialogue and hashing out what's extreme and what's acceptable and what terms work best.
Despite how he ran in 2020, Biden decidedly did not shun the progressive wing as president. He let much of it dictate his policies. Many of these put us on the wrong side of 80-20 issues (open border, biological men in women’s sports, social transition of kids by schools without informing the parents, etc). There were exceptions, eg Israel/Palestine. But exceptions they were.
I'm pretty sure the election was not lost on social issues. The right wants everyone to believe we lost on social issues because it's a wedge they can rely on. Shame on Democrats who play into that narrative. We lost on economic issues--as is almost always the case. The right's playbook is to target a minority, demonize them and work up the conservative base and then accuse the left of harping on social issues when they come to defend the minorities. FTS.
I think it’s both. The democrats let identity trump class about 10-15 years ago which hurt the economic messaging as well as turned off a lot of voters on social issues. It eventually even backfired in some of the very minority communities it was supposed to attract.
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My argument isn't about a single man, Biden. It's about how the progressive wing of the party is treated by congressional "leadership". Pelosi saw to it that people like AOC were not allowed leadership positions. That type of shunning isn't going to work much longer. At the moment I have strong doubts the Democrats will be able to pull together a coherent vision for the party, and the party is in trouble. The "abundance" faction is at odds with the base. That's not going to be an easy reconciliation.
Please explain what you mean by "identity politics".
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I mean the shift from class-based toward a focus on identity categories such as race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Both in building political alliances and in defining and promoting policy.
This move has fractured the democratic coalition and weakened its electoral success. Of course party leaders thought with increasing numbers of Hispanic voters this would lead to safe majorities in the long term. 2024 showed that to be wishful thinking (what I called their ‘theory of the case’ which was shattered last November).
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I think the Abundance Democrats are on to something - this is getting to the root of pocketbook issues that voters care about. Younger voters more than we old timers.
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The "progressive values" as we know them today are anathema to the majority of voters. They bet on a losing horse there and then put all of their energies into attacking Trump even after he left office. Then they tried to pose as the defenders of democracy. I see no sign that they have changed so I think they will continue to be fringe.
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I think the Abundance Democrats are on to something - this is getting to the root of pocketbook issues that voters care about. Younger voters more than we old timers.
@jon-nyc said in Is the time ripe for the progressive movement?:
I think the Abundance Democrats are on to something - this is getting to the root of pocketbook issues that voters care about. Younger voters more than we old timers.
I'm not aware of this movement. More info?
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Here’s ChatGPT’s summary. Ezra and Alex’s book came out in March and they did the podcast circuit then. You can find them on many podcasts describing it more.
Short version: it’s a faction of center-left wonks, politicians, and policy shops arguing that Democrats should be “the party that builds”—more homes, power plants, transit, factories—by fixing the rules that make building slow, scarce, and expensive. They call it the “abundance agenda” or “supply-side progressivism.”
What it wants
• Make more of the basics (housing, clean energy, transit, chips, medical innovation) by streamlining permitting/zoning, boosting state capacity, and investing public money where it unblocks private building.  
• Pair deregulation with investment, not laissez-faire: think Biden-era industrial policy (CHIPS/IRA) plus faster approvals and infrastructure delivery. Proponents dub this “modern supply-side economics.”  Who’s pushing it
• Popularized by Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson (NYT/The Atlantic), whose 2025 bestseller Abundance argues liberal process has choked outputs; they urge a “liberalism that builds.”   
• Backed by pro-housing/YIMBY currents and some centrist/progressive think tanks (e.g., Institute for Progress).  Why it’s “recent”
• The term took off after Thompson’s 2022 Atlantic essay and Biden-era industrial policy; in 2025 the Klein/Thompson book made it a banner for intraparty debate. 
• You can see concrete fights in California, where Democrats moved to streamline CEQA for infill housing and infrastructure—explicitly framed as “abundance.”  The split inside the party
• Supporters say abundance policies lower costs, speed decarbonization, and prove Democrats can deliver materially. 
• Skeptics on the left call it a gloss for deregulation or “neoliberal rebrand”; others say the agenda is too thin without stronger anti-corporate tools.  
• The rift is now showing up in messaging and housing battles; recent coverage frames it as a live Dem family fight.  -
I mean the shift from class-based toward a focus on identity categories such as race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Both in building political alliances and in defining and promoting policy.
This move has fractured the democratic coalition and weakened its electoral success. Of course party leaders thought with increasing numbers of Hispanic voters this would lead to safe majorities in the long term. 2024 showed that to be wishful thinking (what I called their ‘theory of the case’ which was shattered last November).
@jon-nyc I don't agree that "identity politics" even exists. It's all just politics. People's reasons for coalescing around policy is irrelevant.
If people who promote policies because of how they identify are engaging in "identity politics", then those opposing such policies are engaging in "identity politics" as well. They can't identify with what it means to be LGBT or etc.; that's their identity. If fighting for the removal of confederate monuments is "identity politics" then fighting such removal is just as much the same. If people resort to fighting for who they are, it's because the current set of classes is exclusionary.
I was born and spent the first 21 years of my life in NH. I returned to NH 12 years ago. Do I identify as a New Englander? Yes. Do I vote for policy positions that will expand social benefits for NH? Yes, but not if those policies will be detrimental to other parts of the US (I don't really know what that would be, but maybe something like unfair share of federal resources). Do I vote against policy positions that will harm New England? Yes, unless there is a compelling reason not to. If New England was being short changed because it's New England (our current POS wouldn't hesitate to do so), would I fight back? Yes.
I am homosexual, have been my whole life (as far back as I can remember). Do I identify as gay? Yes. Do I vote for policy positions that will expand social benefits for LGBT persons? Yes, but not if those policies will be detrimental to other people (in my wildest imagination I cannot fathom what that would be). Do I vote against policy positions that will harm gays? Yes, unless there is a compelling reason not to. If gay people are being short changed because they're gay, would I fight back?
If I say I'm fighting for my rights as a New Englander, I am not generally considered to be engaged in identity politics. If I say I'm fight for gay rights (or trans rights, or racial equality, etc.) then I'm considered engaged in identity politics?
"Identity" politics is an arbitrary label.
What about rural Americans vs. urban Americans. Surely this has everything to do with identity. Yet one of the biggest problems facing the Democrats is this shift of the left into major metropolitan areas and the right settling in rural America. I read something recently that stated this shift in demographics creates a very real struggle for Democrats to achieve 270 electoral votes. Urban America doesn't identify with rural America, and rural America doesn't identify with urban America. Identity politics? No, just politics.
What about the wealthy fighting for low-tax policy that benefits them at the detriment of most of the nation? Identity politics?
In the end, it's just "politics".
