Progressives are leftists, but applying the liberal label to them doesn’t make much sense in American politics. Liberals in America are center right on a global spectrum, and ultimately very pro corporate. Progressives aren’t these things.

Perhaps you’re conflating government officials with the civilian population they supposedly represent? Consider that there has never been a time in American history where the people have been less represented by the ruling class in government, and that includes all political ideologies. Normal people in America don’t want war or genocide. Arms manufacturing companies and banks do, because they think they can make trillions of dollars from it.

[–] nat_turner_overdrive@hexbear.net 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Progressives are leftists in America where the left to right spectrum spans from liberals on one end to liberals on the other end. In reality, they are not leftists because they are not explicitly anti-capitalist. Capitalism is a right wing economic model and even if you're not "pro-corporate" if all you want is a better managed right wing economic system, you're a liberal.

[–] crusa187@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Interesting perspective, am going to think on that. Makes a lot of sense.

[–] nat_turner_overdrive@hexbear.net 20 points 1 year ago

rat-salute-2

[–] autismdragon@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Sounds like you've already received some good food for thought, but I do have another quesiton for you. Within the American spectrum, would you consider Fetterman a "progressive"? He's generally regarded as being one in my experience, at least on domestic issues. And have you see the rhetoric he's been engaging with since October 7th, outright opposing a ceasefire and so on?

There's also the problem of Bernie, pretty much the progressive in America, equivocating and both sidesing things like others have pointed out. He's not nearly as unhinged on the issue as Fetterman, but he has been horribly weak and doesn't even call for a ceasefire, just a "pause".

I know you make a distinction between government officials and regular people, and thats good because i make sure to do that as well and often correct other hexbears when they inappropriately conflate them. Polling does show that 80% of "regular people" who are Democrats support a ceasefire after all. While only something like 13 US representatives and no Senators support that. So there definitly is a mismatch. Still, I think when nat_turner_overdrive said that progressives are fully behind Zionists and their genocide, he was talking more about progressive politicians rather than regular people. And really, the only two "progressive" politicians (at least in the federal government) who have been consistently good on this issue are Tlaib and Cori Bush. Even Omar waffled.

[–] crusa187@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Hey, I came to very similar conclusions regarding nat’s comments.

Yeah, I think from an American perspective Fetterman is considered progressive. That’s mostly because he supports American progressive policy proposals…things like nationalized healthcare (Medicare for all), free college educations, paid family leave, affordable housing, etc. I know these things are common sense for most of the rest of the world, but America is especially barbaric towards its citizens, so those of us on the left are still fighting for these basic human decencies. Fetterman included.

Where Fetterman really lost me is with his handling of the war in Gaza. I’ve heard his position described as a political calculation, and a poor one at that, but I think there’s more to it. Not sure if you saw the video of him being asked very reasonable questions about a ceasefire by one of his constituents, a former university professor…but in it, he totally ignored the guy, and had a security thug literally shove him 30 feet out a nearby door into the street. That level of callousness tells me there’s something more to his position, although admittedly I’m not intimately familiar with Fetterman as a political figure, and wasn’t quite sure if his reaction was resulting from post-stroke trauma or what.

On the matter of Bernie, yeah I wholly agree he has been very weak on this. That’s been a defining feature of Bernie throughout his whole career though. He’s pretty much always had the right idea policy-wise, but he’s just too nice. Nothing’s going to get done by playing patty-cakes with the establishment, and I just don’t think he has it in him to fight aggressively. Especially after “shooting his shot” in the past couple of election cycles. Bernie mistakenly thought the DNC believed in democracy and would let him win the nomination fair and square if he had the voters. Clearly not the case.

imho, American progressives must form a new party in order to seize power, and the Dems and republicans can fold into the uniform corporate party they already comprise. I think MAGA would likely fall off a cliff as a result of this, losing much of their power. Its my hope that progressive leaders like Tlaib, Cori, Ro Khanna, and the rest of the squad will lead this effort but it’s unclear how affected they are by the time they’ve already spent in the capitol of corruption.