Greg Weiner (New York Times, 4/13/18) puts forth Daniel Patrick Moynihan as the exemplar of the liberal, anti-progressive politician.
A New York Times op-ed by political scientist (and former Bob Kerrey aide) Greg Weiner (4/13/18) may well be the New York Times–iest op-ed ever.
Its ostensible subject is why Democrats should call themselves “liberals” and not “progressives.” But in making that case, it hits most of the main points of the New York Times‘ ideology—one that has guided the paper since the late 19th century.
First and foremost, it’s a defense of the status quo. “The basic premise of liberal politics,” Weiner writes, “is the capacity of government to do good, especially in ameliorating economic ills.” But not too much good, mind you: “A liberal can believe that government can do more good or less,” he stresses. Weiner draws a contrast with progressives: “Where liberalism seeks to ameliorate economic ills, progressivism’s goal is to eradicate them.”
So Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society is cited negatively as an example of “a progressive effort to remake society by eradicating poverty’s causes”—in the process supporting “community action” and financing the “political activism”—presented without explanation as a self-evident evil. The explanation, presumably, is that the poor should remain passive as they remain poor, gratefully accepting the handouts that “alleviate” their plight, as “cutting checks,” as Weiner puts it, is “something government does competently.”
Coupled with this anxiety about “eradicating poverty’s causes” is the confident assurance that the truth is always somewhere in the middle. “Unlike liberalism, progressivism is intrinsically opposed to conservation,” Weiner warns:
Nothing structurally impedes compromise between conservatives, who hold that the accumulated wisdom of tradition is a better guide than the hypercharged rationality of the present, and liberals, because both philosophies exist on a spectrum.
Conservatives make better partners for liberals than progressives, because “one can debate how much to conserve.” But you can’t debate how much to progress, apparently: “Progressivism is inherently hostile to moderation because progress is an unmitigated good.”
In other words: Equality and justice, sure, but let’s not rush into things, is the “liberal’s” advice. He endorses “policies [that] develop gradually and command wide consensus—at least under normal circumstances.” (Progressives have an unnerving desire to “depress the accelerator.”)
Something that doesn’t change is the right wing of the left’s attraction to redbaiting. Weiner praises “the Cold War liberal who stood for social amelioration and against Soviet Communism,” a figure who “was often maligned by progressives.” Without coming out and accusing progressives of Stalinism, he describes progressives’ response to critics as “a passive-aggressive form of re-education,” one that “supersedes the rights of its opponents.” The example he gives of this is the “progressive indifference to the rights of those who oppose progressive policies in areas like sexual liberation”—an odd arena to cite, since the main “rights” that opponents of “sexual liberation” have demanded in recent years are the “right” of small businesses to discriminate against gay customers and the “right” to check the chromosome status of people who use public restrooms.
You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com (Twitter:@NYTimes). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
Liberalism can be defined as doing enough to avoid doing enough
I hate the word progressive. Not sure why. It sounds like it should be some kind of disease.
Signed,
Proud Liberal Bitch!
I want to make the urgent point about SUSTAINABILITY.
But first, the NYT and corporate media have no jurisdiction to be propagating a watered-down definition of liberal like liquor to lemonade.
The NYT here is conflating liberal with the DNC apologists – who are confused, gullible, shallow and disingenuous. Why don’t they just do a Search and Replace: change ‘liberal’ to ‘Democrat voter’?
For myself, I have always identified with labels: liberal, progressive, left, green, hippie.
As I understand things the primary basis of leftie integrity has historically been the need to have union and worker representation in government, and in so doing stimulating growth and avoiding poverty and many other social ills. Social causes are another mainstay, but DNC where we are supposed to be represented, have become the PR shell and market-orientation of social rights – like buy x and get extra miles.
But union and worker power has faded to nothing over the past 30 years (a whole generation) in the wake of transnationalism/Globalisation – and a corporate media agenda to completely black out the very concept.
Liberals like conservatives are anti-war, they have to be tricked into supporting intervention.
For the past 50 years lefties have added eco and environmental defense to their causes. It simply and naturally comes in the humanitarian package of survival and empathy with life.
So this leads to my point on SUSTAINABILITY because it matters not a squat the labels and definitions for me or anyone on the planet if we serve a bullish economy of over consumption and waste, producing the spectical of the wealthiest oligarchs in the history of time but miss the bridge building necessary for survival of future generations.
What da hell is NYT talking about?
Join me in boycotting the NYT.
No surprise he could work for Bob Kerrey. Kerrey is really a terrible guy.
I don’t disagree with Naureckis’ little piece on Wiener’s absurd op/ed on liberals vs progressives. But let’s get our linguistics and semantics straight or we’ll never see a Resistance to fascism that speaks coherently. First, Lyndon Johnson, obviously, was a liberal social democrat in the New Deal mold. Like FDR he did some good stuff but he wasn’t going to, nor did he necessarily believe in eliminating the causes of poverty, because as a liberal, he supported capitalist relations, economic exploitation, and ultimately imperialism (which is why he could not get out of Vietnam). Those relations are the font of inequality of most types something MLK was coming to realize. Which brings us to “progressivism.” Unlike liberalism (which is a relatively accommodating social policy within capitalist ideology), the term progressive is totally vague. Today it is used only as an obfuscation to avoid clarity altogether, and so merges into liberalism. The singular alternative to a collaborationist liberalism on the left is simply anti-capitalism. One doesn’t have to be a communist, a socialist, or an anarchist, to make any meaningful critique of the hollowness of liberalism (and of the fakers who control the Democratic Party and the Media) but one does have to be anti-capitalist to carry out the fight for a comprehensive progressive program. This requires asserting repeatedly that the unifying alternative has to be openly anti-capitalist. This is politics and languge 101. Of course there is no sense in trying to clarify this point in a letter to the NYT because their ideology requires blocking out such plain truths from public view. But what excuse do we (on the so-called “left”) have to consistently use language that confuses matters rather than clarifies. The notion of “progressive” politics (unless explicitly called anti-capitalist) is no more useful to us than the term liberal. And that op/ed by Wiener shows why we need that clarity.
Progressive and Regressive…..everyone knows who you are talking about and why.
I read the article and the FAIR comment as well as other reader’s comments. I find the parsing of the words ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ at least silly if not stupid and counterproductive in an environment in which anything to the left of Sen. Cruz is preferable to the insanity of the status quo. The NYT ‘analysis’ is intellectualized BS in support of the neoliberal ‘New Democrats’ but arguing about it by attacking the analysis or the responses is just what the freedom caucus depends on for their continued power in Congress and the country.
As a retired (and recovering) lawyer, I agree that words and in some cases, every single word, is important. On the other hand there is a clear case right now when there are ‘us’ and there are ‘them’. Trump recognized that and coalesced his cult by attacking ‘them’ on behalf of every person who has felt neglected or benighted over the past thirty years of neoliberalism. We, as a group, liberal or progressive, Democrat or Independent, we are nice. They, whether business Republicans, far right, ‘freedom caucus’ or Trump cult, are nasty.
For six and a half months, let’s all of the nice folks work very hard to defeat as many of the nasty folks as possible and then spend a while discussing how wonderful we all are explaining how our part of the tribe was responsible for winning for a change instead of what we have been doing for the past two years, blaming one another. Then, in 2019 and 2020 we can complete the removal of the nasty folks from control of our cities, counties, states and our country.
> “the Cold War liberal who stood for social amelioration and against Soviet Communism,” a figure who “was often maligned by progressives.”
Fear of USSR propaganda being effective is part of the reason why reforms happened (https://fair.org/home/the-political-economy-of-moral-authority/)