What is progressivism? An on-going query

In talking about progressivism, I tend to find myself answering what progressivism is not. I have two reasons for this. One, too many people are using the term in lieu of the L-word; in 2008, Hillary Clinton called herself a progressive when, more accurately, she was and remains a liberal. Being a liberal is a good thing — Senator Ron Wyden is a bona fide liberal and a great Senator — but pretending you are not a liberal and calling yourself a progressive has become too common a habit.

Second, I often answer negatively for the reason just hinted at: Things need to be called by their proper name. Liberal is liberal, and it’s a very good thing. Liberalism gave us democracy, social security, education, universal suffrage and most of what we recognize and celebrate as great about our political and social societies (ok, those of us not on the right-wing of those societies). Yes, liberalism was turned into a dirty word in the last two decades of the 20th Century, but that’s no reason to abandon a perfectly good word. Kudos to Paul Krugman for holding fast to his liberal identity.

And thanks to Paul Krugman for helping me to clarify in my own mind how to express a positive definition of progressive. The quote eludes me for now, but at one point last year he wrote of someone “pursuing liberal policies in a progressive manner” or words to that effect. I remember reading the phrase and the light bulb, at last, going “ding!”

Here’s the basic differentiation between liberalism and progressivism. Liberalism is about the goals: health care, taxes, the economy, etc. Policy end results. The goals we seek are not new, and they are rooted in the Enlightenment: based on rationality with a focus on the individual, liberty and, as we Americans are wont to emphasize, the “pursuit of happiness”.

Progressvism is how we accomplish these goals. There are multiple ways to achieve the same policy goals. A military junta could easily provide high quality, affordable health care to all persons, even allowing them to choose which doctor they want to see. (A military junta can establish almost any policy it wants.) A corporate-based right-wing conservative government could do the same thing, with the entire thing run privately but required, as a matter of good business policy, to be affordable and universal (make the product something all persons can purchase, so the product remains stable and a constant source of income, a simple business practice the insane greedheads running Health Care, Inc, do not grasp).

These are simplistic examples of achieving a liberal goal with means that are neither liberal nor progressive. I doubt either would be attempted or successful. We have learned that, for a variety of reasons, the political approach we call “liberal” is also inadequate to the need. Liberal politics would be the top-down, government-led approach to instituting liberal policy. Liberal politics starts with a good intention — education for all, support the unions — but because leadership comes from the top of distant, massive institutions, the programs quickly lose touch with too many citizens. Affirmative action, a very good and necessary policy approach to the institutionalized effects of racism, gender bias, etc, was imposed by courts, Congress and so on. The key word here is “imposed”. Or, as too many people grew to perceive it, “shoved down our throats for no good reason”.

Of course there were plenty of good reasons to impose affirmative action, and these reasons remain true to this day. However, as political and personal resentment to affirmative action policies grew — or, more accurately, was stoked by the right wing for their political purposes — people lost sight of why the policy was needed. This is the problem with top-down implementation of any societal change, of any significant policy change with meaningful implications for ordinary people’s lives. As most political people recognize, for a policy or program to have its best chance for success, in any setting, you need buy-in from those being affected by it. People have to decide for themselves a program or policy is legitimate and, in some way, beneficial to their own lives. And imposing policy from the top-down, even with the best intentions, is rarely going to engender that legitimacy.

While leadership at the top is vital — after all, someone has to be in position to pass and enforce laws — the best means to bring about significant change is from the bottom-up. The grassroots. Barack Obama became president not because a cabal of Democratic leaders inside the Beltway decided he would be the best way to win back the White House. To the contrary, leaders inside the Beltway opposed him far more than they supported him. But millions of Americans, through their contributions of time and money, pushed his campaign to victory. He and his team based in Chicago ran the official campaign, but it was the self-organizing volunteers around the country who made possible the opportunity the national campaign built on to win.

That is the heart of progressive politics: Ordinary citizens deciding to take a political stand and then becoming major players in the campaign. It’s not an anarcist thing: an organization with “leaders” will almost always be involved in any successful campaign or program. But the more that the grassroots play a major role in pushing forward the goal, the greater the chances for success. Hence the Obama Administration racheting up “Organizing for America” during the August recess. By asking the people who worked to get him elected to step up and push health care in their neighborhoods and with their members of Congress, Obama showed his deep progressive roots by stepping back and letting ordinary citizens provide the real leadership the health care battle needs. When Congress reconvenes and discovers signed pledges from hundreds of thousands of citizens awaiting them with the message “I support the President”, their focus is going to shift rapidly to what the voters want.

At least that is the plan. But there is no other way to overcome the massive expenditures of the health insurance industry and the conservative media. Leadership at the top in this country is focused not on the needs of the American people but on the needs of leadership at the top in this country. Obama recognizes this and rather than depend on his own position as President to oppose those selfish powers, he is asking people at the ‘roots to be the leaders. To step forward in their own communities and show their families, friends and neighbors the changes that are needed and how to accomplish them.

Bottom-up, not top-down. That’s the power of progressive politics. The biggest question we progressives face: How do “we” get citizens to recognize that the political policies they desire require them to become active participants in the process? To see that “change we believe in” will come, not from those at the top, but from us at the bottom?

And will we do it in time to get real health care reform?