Gallup poll: let's figure out what "progressive" means

I’ve been protesting the thoughtless use of the word “progressive” for several years now. I’ve protested liberals like Hillary Clinton using it simply to dodge the L-work, and I’ve protested lefties in general using it without any definition beyond “please don’t call me a liberal”. A Gallup poll shows that use of the word may be of use to some people, but, overall, it’s a term that is clarifying nothing for the American public.

According the poll, only 26% of Liberals agree that the label “progressive” describes their political views; 54% of Liberals are unsure about the term. For Moderates, the numbers are 11% and 65%. If this was a candidate running and these were approval numbers, most people would agree the campaign was in deep trouble.

This is how untenable the term currently is. Of those who call themselves progressive, 45% say they are liberal or very liberal; 32% describe themselves as moderate; and 22% say they are conservative or very conservative. Yes, that’s right: 1-in-4 “progressives” are self-identify as conservatives. But, as I have written before, this is not an unreasonable finding.

Progressive politics (per me) is not about the end; it’s the means. A clean environment, sustainable economy, peace, justice, quality education, etc; all the great social goods so many of us work for are not “progressive” goals — they are liberal goals. They are liberal goals for the come from a belief in goals that we achieve working together as a society, without government playing a vital role in this process. Goals like this are relatively unchanged from what we spent most of the last century trying to achieve. We have new circumstances, new tools, new complications, but an economy where most Americans earn a living wage is still a goal we cannot call anything but “liberal”. It’s the New Deal, Great Society, Change We Can Believe In; call it what you want, it’s the same as it ever was. Liberal.

What is different in 2010 is how we work to make a liberal goal a reality. In the 20th Century, government decided what needed to be done, developed the programs and told the country what was going to happen and what was expected of citizens. Today, in various ways, not all of them good, the people direct government how to act. As progressives, we do this not by throwing tantrums or forming astroturf groups; we do it by becoming part of the political process. This is problematic thing. If someone gets involved directly in the political process in the same “progressive” way that I do, but with different ends in mind, I don’t know that I can say they are not progressive. Since I believe progressivism is about the how and not the what of politics, to judge another’s progressivism based on their goals does not strike me as justifiable.

However, on a practical level, I’ve seen very few conservatives get involved in politics the way liberal progressives do. Conservatives tend not to value the public sector highly; to be involved in the political process to promote public political goals as liberals do is something you’ll rarely see from conservatives. They get involved to win elections and promote or oppose (usually by donating large amounts of money) government programs they oppose or support. It is liberals who take up grassroots action in positive, pro-active support of government activity — liberal government activity. I believe this is why “progressive” and “liberal” have become interchangeable to some (not to mention the ability of the P-word to provide cover from the L-word).

So while I see nothing in the definition of “progressive” to preclude whether or not goals sought through politics are liberal or conservative, the world views (political beliefs) of liberals and conservatives are such that it is the former, and not the latter, who are most likely to take up a progressive political stance. Liberals believe government has a significant, and often leading, role to play in most areas of life. Most progressives agree with that statement and add the following: Citizens, not government, have to play the leading role.

The more we liberals (and left-leaning moderates) can agree on this definition — that progressivism is about how we do politics, not about what — the more of the confusion we can rid ourselves of. And the less room we will allow for the right to attack us for a term about which too many of us remain clueless.