Here is one more terrible idea that was passionately embraced by progressives:
A new flu/cold virus ( that probably leaked from a lab doing government funded gain of function research) should be used to shut down the world, mask up, and vax up, ushering in a biosecurity paradigm. From now on ( we were told) unaccountable agencies like the WHO or the CDC will monitor all viruses on earth and tell you when you have to mask up, keep your kid home from school ( for months!) and get a new mrna vaccine.
Covid was basically zero danger for kids, yet schools were closed, for 2 years in progressive cities! Toddlers were masked for three years in New York! The damage to expert crediblity is/was huge.
Why was this a progressive idea? It must be that progressive get off on being able to boss around everyone in very intrusive and powerful ways --- for the collective good, of course.
Spot On. The damages of the lockdowns are very real, and some are permanent. These actions irreversibly damaged my family. My 12-year-old daughter struggles with a clinically diagnosed phobia toward germs and illness, despite NEVER having actually been sick. She's never even caught a stomach bug. Yet her fear is constant...20+ episodes a day. School refusal...the whole 9 yards. Her anxiety began PRECISELY at the time she returned to school after the lockdowns. This fear did not originate in our home. We largely let our kids be kids. We resisted the draconian measures, took our kids out, masked only when forced to, and re-assured our children that they weren't in any danger despite what their teachers and brainwashed friends would say. My son did just fine. The most hurtful and damaging words/actions toward my daughter came from the daughters of liberal parents. To this day we fight a daily battle with no end in sight. I'm convinced it's a direct result of the authoritarian measures forced upon us by the liberal politicians that run our state and local government (Illinois). If only they would have actually 'followed the science'. You're right...they get off on power over others almost as much as they do being controlled by others. It's quite a paradox.
Covid killed an estimated seven million people worldwide (many more deaths were uncounted). Public health measures are as old civilization and emergency measures are often used collectively during a crises. For some reason, people like you decided that they didn't have any collective responsibility and killed millions of extra people due to your self centeredness. Duty, honor, country used to be foundational ideas of conservatism. What happened?
Excellent addition to an excellent post. Your final point is, of course, absolutely correct. The Regressives (I refuse to call them progressive because they are driving the country into a ditch, and that is not progress) have a monumental and wholly undeserved intellectual arrogance, and with it they enjoy nothing more than screaming loudly, shrilly, and incessantly at anyone who dares to question their various religious beliefs.
Never has the chasm between conviction and competence been so vast.
Ruy Texeira writes with rare if not unmatched authority on politics, and we can hope and pray he is right when he suggests America's romance with the progressive Left movement is done.
I have my doubts. Like a late-stage cancer, the Left has a distressing way of returning, more subtle yet more dangerous ever. It can be managed, even controlled, but elimination proves more difficult and not always successful.
The outcome of America's election in less than 2 weeks will tell us everything we need to know, for now, about the American people's vigilance in ending it. I'll believe it if the 2024 Democratic national ticket is dealt a decisive blow, preferably a landslide. I won't hold my breath.
Here's another meta-reason why many of these policies failed - the Progressives deliberately chose a dogmatic and zealous approach to advancing their message in the public sphere. They co-opted the pitchfork, bomb-throwing tactics of social media to cow anyone that opposed them into submission and brand them as apostates. Voters hate being called racist or homophobic when they don't full-throatesly agree with open borders and bizarre gender politics.
Not only have the Progressives ruined our brand, they take little to no ownership for adapting or fixing it because as far as they're concerned they're just insurgents in a corrupt Democratic party anyways. They'll just take their pro-Palestine vote to Jill Stein.
Where were the adults in the room? None of our leaders had the courage to push back and tell these folks to take a chill pill.
The path forward is a new leadership that is not afraid to reject the maximalist nonsense of the past in order to regain the trust of the working class, and gives everyone else cover to do so.
This is a great piece. While the output would have been far less eloquent and well-structured, I could have written this article in 2015. All of your points are so logical and plainly clear. It's been maddening as a moderate conservative to have spent 10 years now trying to make these arguments to my liberal friends...at least those who still speak to me. And that's really the point. While every argument you make is salient, the overriding mistake the left has made is its approach to coerce, bully, and cancel people into submission. The points you make in your article have been central to my positions and, if we're being honest, those of the Republican party, for the last decade. Yes, we have an imperfect standard bearer, but it hardly makes him the Devil re-incarnate, much less the 50% of the country that supports him and likely the 60% of the country that probably at least somewhat agrees with him. Winning through intimidation rarely works, especially when the ideas and policies you're forcing allegiance to are so clearly self-indulgent and plainly BAD. I didn't know if America could come back from this...I still don't. Articles like yours give me hope.
I think what infuriates me more than anything about the past 10 years (starting in 2014, specifically) is not just that progressives wanted to try all these policies and became irate at anyone who questioned them, but that politicians found ways to go around American sentiment and enact deeply unpopular policies. There is no way they looked at public sentiment even for one second and thought the people wanted these things. They doubled and tripled down on them instead. And, they made people with common sense or long held American values feel attacked or crazy or somehow irredeemable. It's unforgivable without an acknowledgement.
When Speaker Pelosi said of the Affordable Care Act, "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it," she insulted the intelligence of every voter. When President Obama lied, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan", he revealed his contempt for every American voter. What arrogant people have been running the Democratic Party.
An economist named Jonathan Gruber designed most of the Affordable Care Act. Yet, he doubted it would pass if presented accurately. “If CBO scored the [individual] mandate as taxes, the bill dies,” Gruber said. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber said. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”
The above was brilliant. If Harris loses, Dems will not need a political autopsy. Mr. Teixeira has already produced one. Perhaps the only items unaddressed, are a lack of empathy for lower and middle earning Americans, and the inability of Dem Party leaders to foresee the consequences of their actions.
The first person murdered by an illegal immigrant, after Harris and Biden rescinded Trump's border regulations, should have set off alarm bells for Dems. They should have managed to at least feign sympathy, and promised improved vetting.
Instead, the Dem response was either to ignore the crimes ever occurred, or to claim, they would never, happen again. A wheel chair bound, mentally challenged child, was raped by one of Joe and Kamala's new arrivals. The Boston Mayor called the violent rape "unfortunate". Not a single mention of regret from DC. If we are a country that will not protect physically and mentally challenged children, from imported monsters, or at least fake concern, after the fact, why on earth, do people pay taxes?
Migrant violence is no longer a rarity. Recently, an ABC Sunday Show host, actually said the quiet part out loud. She did not have the least bit concern for Colorado low income apartment dwellers, now forced to reside, where their entire apartment complex are ruled by Venezuelan gangs, only that Trump and Vance exaggerated how many complexes. were under gang control.
f Dems lack empathy , their ability to foresee the consequences of their actions, is even worse. Did they expect a half dozen people a day to cross theUS border, when they opened it?
The end of fossil fuels, and firstly, fracking,, lacked any basis in reality. 43% of US oil is now derived from fracking. Banning it would send the price of everything soaring. The inflation of the past 4 years would look mild, by comparison. To say nothing of the national security implications. Moreover AI power demands are huge. Should the US just concede the tech to China and hope out next war occurs on a battlefield with EV charging stations?
Defunding the police, was policy, seemingly conceived in a rich girl sorority. Has anyone forced to dwell in crime ridden neighborhoods, ever asked for fewer police? Most crime victims are found in the bottom quintiles of US earners. How many have requested their burglar, rapist, or assailant, walk out of jail, hours after the crime, thanks to bail reform? Many US,Police Departments are still vastly understaffed. When labeling all police, racist and violent, did Dems expect recruit numbers to jump?
The list goes on, but the problem is often the same. Produce immature policies with lousy outcomes, mostly for the poor and middle class, and then refuse to demonstrate any empathy, for the damage caused.
The left side of the Democratic Party, should be very pleased they have Trump to run against. I remember in 2016 when we were celebrating Trump for being easy to beat compared to a typical generic Romney type Republican.
Cheney Republicans are a species in decline, populists are ascendant. A contest between an articulate, young and likeable candidate such as Vance would be a blow out with coat tails extending to both sides of the house.
I'm not sure what is needed for the Democratic Party to do such an abrupt about face on open borders, defunding police, DEI racism, and an energy transition. So far they have settled on simply avoiding the question, that might be enough.
I personally think that the "Progressive" moment in the sun was a malignant side effect of the Covid lockdowns. Many of us were distracted by fears of the virus, the need to adapt to at home work (if we had that option), managing the education of our children, and other more important things than overseeing whatever games the "Progressives" were playing. The extremists took this opportunity to make their long-planned move to take over the Democratic Party as well as most of the power structure in the U.S. The media's exploitation of the George Floyd death in custody also mobilized a mass of people who previously had not been well informed about civil rights and were easily indoctrinated by anti-cop activists.
It has taken a couple of years for Americans to become aware of how much damage the newly radical and insane Democratic Party has done to our country. Unfortunately, the extremists' takeover of the U.S. and Western Civ more generally has been so successful that dislodging them from power will be very difficult and perhaps impossible. One step that I personally can take is to never vote for another Democrat again, to the extent I can avoid doing so. Since the Democrats have taken over my state and city completely, I can't always avoid it.
Is it really over or just hiding its ugly head through a conservative trend and then come back full bore only to complete its mission. The WEF is not going away and it has survived since the 60's and has gotten stronger in the last few years with many of our own leaders considered prize students of Klaus Schwab.
I think you captured what went wrong with the progressive movement and by default the Democratic Party well. Honestly common sense would have told them that none of these positions would hold. And when a movement shows no common sense their entire message is rejected.
I agree with most of this, but some of it needs nuance. The "Green New Deal" was a terrible strategic mistake because it wrapped up climate-crisis issues with every good idea every lefty advocate ever had about anything. The worst of that error was that it tainted addressing climate issues with a deep leftist hue, when in fact there is an objective crisis that objectively requires to be addressed by any and every responsible government before it is too late (and the "too late" point is near if not already upon us). The discussion of climate issues here focuses mostly on polling perceptions about fossil fuels. That's probably right on the attitudes of the public. But, on this issue, the attitudes of the public aren't the most important variable (unlike many of the other issues addressed). The case for addressing climate change is increasingly impelling. The only error the science has made is that it is accelerating faster than anticipated. Even if people find the transition to non-petroleum cars, heat pumps, and the rest inconvenient, the problem is there and will be harder and harder to address the longer politicians dither about it. And, by not acting now, we are likely to forfeit leadership on the essential new technologies to China, whereas there is an opportunity (incompletely embraced by Biden Administration policies, but it's a beginning) to seize the leadership on those issues. A recent Foreign Affairs article makes a good case that the US could not only do good but profit immensely from a Marshall Plan-like initiative on climate. Yet Harris and Biden seem to be trapped in the poll-driven myopia and timidity the Liberal Patriot essay adopts. Trump may not care about what little children now in Kindergarten face 70 years from now but every rational person should, and that means confronting climate change and making the most of the technological and financial challenges it represents. We need a Call to Arms as in World War II, but the choice seems to be between between a timid Chamberlain-like response and a full-surrender approach that even Halifax would have rejected. We need a Churchill and a Roosevelt, which is to say true leadership. Once the election is over (and assuming the surrender monkeys have not won), Harris should take up this challenge immediately, as the first priority.
The only way in which I somewhat agree with “progressives” is on the need to transition the economy away from fossil fuels.
I am one of those college educated white people whose education included both engineering and economics. As such, I recognize that the depletion of reserves of fossil fuels will eventually lead to increased costs that seriously restrict their affordability — regardless of what happens with climate change.
As solutions I advocate both phasing in a tax on carbon emissions and federal level promotion of nuclear power, noting that the revenues from the tax should be used to reduce other taxes.
Nailed it Ruy---so does the next commentator, Isabelle.
I had characterized the Democrat Problem in terms of two unwinnable civil wars: 1) Hamas/Palestine vs. Jews. No way you can side with one without alienating the other; 2) Inner city American residents vs illegal criminal alien invaders. But now there is a new civil war that Ruy captures a little of in the energy transition, only it's much bigger than I think he realizes: "green" vs the techhies and AI. The fact is green must be totally ditched in favor of nukes and fossil fuels if we are to have any shot at an AI-capable grid.
But again, great job Ruy---this is why I follow you, for your common sense, and absolutely right Isabelle. The vax was a terrible idea and will harm us for years to come. But the GOP was also in on that with very few exceptions.
Progressives need not worry. I am old enough to remember when Bill Clinton declared, "The era of Big Government is over." I suspect he knew that it was just going dormant in the face of voter sentiment, and that it would roar back due to the unrelenting demand of its beneficiaries.
Progressivism isn't' even dormant - look at the encampments on any university campus for confirmation - but it has been driven out of the center of the public square because voters hate all the policies cited in the column and in the comments. So how can it creep back into contention as a governing philosophy?
I think the key is that the voters don't necessarily hate all Progressive ideals - see the testimonies cited in the column - but they resent the hell out of having those ideals shoved down their throats without any thought toward either their acceptance or the practical effects of wholesale social changes. "Adopt our beliefs and practices or we will silence you, strip you of your employment, and destroy your reputation" is more like Fascism than republican democracy, and it's a good way to provoke backlash.
For one example, Progressives mandated the end of incandescent light bulbs when the only alternative was compact fluorescent lights. CFLs are filled with toxic mercury, far more expensive than traditional light bulbs, and are often so cheaply made that instead of lasting the promised years, they died in weeks. The reason this did not lead to marches on legislatures to get our incandescents back was the happy circumstance that LED bulbs became commercially viable just in time. But that was the effect of long years of research and development, not an instant result of the incandescent bulb ban.
This applies to the current fetish to eliminate fossil fuels. Instead of developing a deeper understanding of how to harmonize human food and energy needs to the natural carbon cycle, Progressives latched onto the idea that fossil fuels are evil and that current "carbon-free" technologies need to be force-fit to current needs. As a result, we all see the horrifying limitations of wind and solar power generation in terms of fluctuating generation that doesn't meet peak demand as well as environmental impacts of windmills (Martha's Vineyard, anyone?) and large solar farms. We also see the terrible limitations of electric vehicles in terms of their mismatch to how consumers want to use their personal transportation and the charging infrastructure that doesn't yet exist.
If, instead of mandates and bans, government established goals and incentives for innovation, research and development would find viable solutions to meet those goals in ways consumers would accept. Instead of backlash, there would be commercial acceptance.
The same principles apply to setting up a well-regulated immigration program that ensures that immigrants match in number, capabilities, and desire to assimilate the goals of our nation and its economy. The same principles apply to reforming education and vocational training to ensure that all children are educated to the best of their ability - including them and their parents being held accountable for their diligently trying to learn - and prepared to be self-sustaining, productive and responsible citizens.
If Progressives can give up the idea of "revolution" that imposes their solutions by fiat and instead take up the hard work of persuading their fellow citizens to adopt Progressive goals in a gradual process of change, maybe the next Progressive surge won't trigger the same backlash we see today.
Here is one more terrible idea that was passionately embraced by progressives:
A new flu/cold virus ( that probably leaked from a lab doing government funded gain of function research) should be used to shut down the world, mask up, and vax up, ushering in a biosecurity paradigm. From now on ( we were told) unaccountable agencies like the WHO or the CDC will monitor all viruses on earth and tell you when you have to mask up, keep your kid home from school ( for months!) and get a new mrna vaccine.
Covid was basically zero danger for kids, yet schools were closed, for 2 years in progressive cities! Toddlers were masked for three years in New York! The damage to expert crediblity is/was huge.
Why was this a progressive idea? It must be that progressive get off on being able to boss around everyone in very intrusive and powerful ways --- for the collective good, of course.
A
Spot On. The damages of the lockdowns are very real, and some are permanent. These actions irreversibly damaged my family. My 12-year-old daughter struggles with a clinically diagnosed phobia toward germs and illness, despite NEVER having actually been sick. She's never even caught a stomach bug. Yet her fear is constant...20+ episodes a day. School refusal...the whole 9 yards. Her anxiety began PRECISELY at the time she returned to school after the lockdowns. This fear did not originate in our home. We largely let our kids be kids. We resisted the draconian measures, took our kids out, masked only when forced to, and re-assured our children that they weren't in any danger despite what their teachers and brainwashed friends would say. My son did just fine. The most hurtful and damaging words/actions toward my daughter came from the daughters of liberal parents. To this day we fight a daily battle with no end in sight. I'm convinced it's a direct result of the authoritarian measures forced upon us by the liberal politicians that run our state and local government (Illinois). If only they would have actually 'followed the science'. You're right...they get off on power over others almost as much as they do being controlled by others. It's quite a paradox.
I am so sorry about your daughter. I hope that with your lucidity and love she will move on from this.
Covid killed an estimated seven million people worldwide (many more deaths were uncounted). Public health measures are as old civilization and emergency measures are often used collectively during a crises. For some reason, people like you decided that they didn't have any collective responsibility and killed millions of extra people due to your self centeredness. Duty, honor, country used to be foundational ideas of conservatism. What happened?
Just as the Labour Party intended to maintain wartime rationing forever after WW2. To prevent the rich from eating well.
Excellent addition to an excellent post. Your final point is, of course, absolutely correct. The Regressives (I refuse to call them progressive because they are driving the country into a ditch, and that is not progress) have a monumental and wholly undeserved intellectual arrogance, and with it they enjoy nothing more than screaming loudly, shrilly, and incessantly at anyone who dares to question their various religious beliefs.
Never has the chasm between conviction and competence been so vast.
Ruy Texeira writes with rare if not unmatched authority on politics, and we can hope and pray he is right when he suggests America's romance with the progressive Left movement is done.
I have my doubts. Like a late-stage cancer, the Left has a distressing way of returning, more subtle yet more dangerous ever. It can be managed, even controlled, but elimination proves more difficult and not always successful.
The outcome of America's election in less than 2 weeks will tell us everything we need to know, for now, about the American people's vigilance in ending it. I'll believe it if the 2024 Democratic national ticket is dealt a decisive blow, preferably a landslide. I won't hold my breath.
Here's another meta-reason why many of these policies failed - the Progressives deliberately chose a dogmatic and zealous approach to advancing their message in the public sphere. They co-opted the pitchfork, bomb-throwing tactics of social media to cow anyone that opposed them into submission and brand them as apostates. Voters hate being called racist or homophobic when they don't full-throatesly agree with open borders and bizarre gender politics.
Not only have the Progressives ruined our brand, they take little to no ownership for adapting or fixing it because as far as they're concerned they're just insurgents in a corrupt Democratic party anyways. They'll just take their pro-Palestine vote to Jill Stein.
Where were the adults in the room? None of our leaders had the courage to push back and tell these folks to take a chill pill.
The path forward is a new leadership that is not afraid to reject the maximalist nonsense of the past in order to regain the trust of the working class, and gives everyone else cover to do so.
This is a great piece. While the output would have been far less eloquent and well-structured, I could have written this article in 2015. All of your points are so logical and plainly clear. It's been maddening as a moderate conservative to have spent 10 years now trying to make these arguments to my liberal friends...at least those who still speak to me. And that's really the point. While every argument you make is salient, the overriding mistake the left has made is its approach to coerce, bully, and cancel people into submission. The points you make in your article have been central to my positions and, if we're being honest, those of the Republican party, for the last decade. Yes, we have an imperfect standard bearer, but it hardly makes him the Devil re-incarnate, much less the 50% of the country that supports him and likely the 60% of the country that probably at least somewhat agrees with him. Winning through intimidation rarely works, especially when the ideas and policies you're forcing allegiance to are so clearly self-indulgent and plainly BAD. I didn't know if America could come back from this...I still don't. Articles like yours give me hope.
I think what infuriates me more than anything about the past 10 years (starting in 2014, specifically) is not just that progressives wanted to try all these policies and became irate at anyone who questioned them, but that politicians found ways to go around American sentiment and enact deeply unpopular policies. There is no way they looked at public sentiment even for one second and thought the people wanted these things. They doubled and tripled down on them instead. And, they made people with common sense or long held American values feel attacked or crazy or somehow irredeemable. It's unforgivable without an acknowledgement.
When Speaker Pelosi said of the Affordable Care Act, "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it," she insulted the intelligence of every voter. When President Obama lied, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan", he revealed his contempt for every American voter. What arrogant people have been running the Democratic Party.
An economist named Jonathan Gruber designed most of the Affordable Care Act. Yet, he doubted it would pass if presented accurately. “If CBO scored the [individual] mandate as taxes, the bill dies,” Gruber said. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber said. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”
The above was brilliant. If Harris loses, Dems will not need a political autopsy. Mr. Teixeira has already produced one. Perhaps the only items unaddressed, are a lack of empathy for lower and middle earning Americans, and the inability of Dem Party leaders to foresee the consequences of their actions.
The first person murdered by an illegal immigrant, after Harris and Biden rescinded Trump's border regulations, should have set off alarm bells for Dems. They should have managed to at least feign sympathy, and promised improved vetting.
Instead, the Dem response was either to ignore the crimes ever occurred, or to claim, they would never, happen again. A wheel chair bound, mentally challenged child, was raped by one of Joe and Kamala's new arrivals. The Boston Mayor called the violent rape "unfortunate". Not a single mention of regret from DC. If we are a country that will not protect physically and mentally challenged children, from imported monsters, or at least fake concern, after the fact, why on earth, do people pay taxes?
Migrant violence is no longer a rarity. Recently, an ABC Sunday Show host, actually said the quiet part out loud. She did not have the least bit concern for Colorado low income apartment dwellers, now forced to reside, where their entire apartment complex are ruled by Venezuelan gangs, only that Trump and Vance exaggerated how many complexes. were under gang control.
f Dems lack empathy , their ability to foresee the consequences of their actions, is even worse. Did they expect a half dozen people a day to cross theUS border, when they opened it?
The end of fossil fuels, and firstly, fracking,, lacked any basis in reality. 43% of US oil is now derived from fracking. Banning it would send the price of everything soaring. The inflation of the past 4 years would look mild, by comparison. To say nothing of the national security implications. Moreover AI power demands are huge. Should the US just concede the tech to China and hope out next war occurs on a battlefield with EV charging stations?
Defunding the police, was policy, seemingly conceived in a rich girl sorority. Has anyone forced to dwell in crime ridden neighborhoods, ever asked for fewer police? Most crime victims are found in the bottom quintiles of US earners. How many have requested their burglar, rapist, or assailant, walk out of jail, hours after the crime, thanks to bail reform? Many US,Police Departments are still vastly understaffed. When labeling all police, racist and violent, did Dems expect recruit numbers to jump?
The list goes on, but the problem is often the same. Produce immature policies with lousy outcomes, mostly for the poor and middle class, and then refuse to demonstrate any empathy, for the damage caused.
The left side of the Democratic Party, should be very pleased they have Trump to run against. I remember in 2016 when we were celebrating Trump for being easy to beat compared to a typical generic Romney type Republican.
Cheney Republicans are a species in decline, populists are ascendant. A contest between an articulate, young and likeable candidate such as Vance would be a blow out with coat tails extending to both sides of the house.
I'm not sure what is needed for the Democratic Party to do such an abrupt about face on open borders, defunding police, DEI racism, and an energy transition. So far they have settled on simply avoiding the question, that might be enough.
Excellent article!
I personally think that the "Progressive" moment in the sun was a malignant side effect of the Covid lockdowns. Many of us were distracted by fears of the virus, the need to adapt to at home work (if we had that option), managing the education of our children, and other more important things than overseeing whatever games the "Progressives" were playing. The extremists took this opportunity to make their long-planned move to take over the Democratic Party as well as most of the power structure in the U.S. The media's exploitation of the George Floyd death in custody also mobilized a mass of people who previously had not been well informed about civil rights and were easily indoctrinated by anti-cop activists.
It has taken a couple of years for Americans to become aware of how much damage the newly radical and insane Democratic Party has done to our country. Unfortunately, the extremists' takeover of the U.S. and Western Civ more generally has been so successful that dislodging them from power will be very difficult and perhaps impossible. One step that I personally can take is to never vote for another Democrat again, to the extent I can avoid doing so. Since the Democrats have taken over my state and city completely, I can't always avoid it.
Is it really over or just hiding its ugly head through a conservative trend and then come back full bore only to complete its mission. The WEF is not going away and it has survived since the 60's and has gotten stronger in the last few years with many of our own leaders considered prize students of Klaus Schwab.
I think you captured what went wrong with the progressive movement and by default the Democratic Party well. Honestly common sense would have told them that none of these positions would hold. And when a movement shows no common sense their entire message is rejected.
I agree with most of this, but some of it needs nuance. The "Green New Deal" was a terrible strategic mistake because it wrapped up climate-crisis issues with every good idea every lefty advocate ever had about anything. The worst of that error was that it tainted addressing climate issues with a deep leftist hue, when in fact there is an objective crisis that objectively requires to be addressed by any and every responsible government before it is too late (and the "too late" point is near if not already upon us). The discussion of climate issues here focuses mostly on polling perceptions about fossil fuels. That's probably right on the attitudes of the public. But, on this issue, the attitudes of the public aren't the most important variable (unlike many of the other issues addressed). The case for addressing climate change is increasingly impelling. The only error the science has made is that it is accelerating faster than anticipated. Even if people find the transition to non-petroleum cars, heat pumps, and the rest inconvenient, the problem is there and will be harder and harder to address the longer politicians dither about it. And, by not acting now, we are likely to forfeit leadership on the essential new technologies to China, whereas there is an opportunity (incompletely embraced by Biden Administration policies, but it's a beginning) to seize the leadership on those issues. A recent Foreign Affairs article makes a good case that the US could not only do good but profit immensely from a Marshall Plan-like initiative on climate. Yet Harris and Biden seem to be trapped in the poll-driven myopia and timidity the Liberal Patriot essay adopts. Trump may not care about what little children now in Kindergarten face 70 years from now but every rational person should, and that means confronting climate change and making the most of the technological and financial challenges it represents. We need a Call to Arms as in World War II, but the choice seems to be between between a timid Chamberlain-like response and a full-surrender approach that even Halifax would have rejected. We need a Churchill and a Roosevelt, which is to say true leadership. Once the election is over (and assuming the surrender monkeys have not won), Harris should take up this challenge immediately, as the first priority.
The only way in which I somewhat agree with “progressives” is on the need to transition the economy away from fossil fuels.
I am one of those college educated white people whose education included both engineering and economics. As such, I recognize that the depletion of reserves of fossil fuels will eventually lead to increased costs that seriously restrict their affordability — regardless of what happens with climate change.
As solutions I advocate both phasing in a tax on carbon emissions and federal level promotion of nuclear power, noting that the revenues from the tax should be used to reduce other taxes.
Nailed it Ruy---so does the next commentator, Isabelle.
I had characterized the Democrat Problem in terms of two unwinnable civil wars: 1) Hamas/Palestine vs. Jews. No way you can side with one without alienating the other; 2) Inner city American residents vs illegal criminal alien invaders. But now there is a new civil war that Ruy captures a little of in the energy transition, only it's much bigger than I think he realizes: "green" vs the techhies and AI. The fact is green must be totally ditched in favor of nukes and fossil fuels if we are to have any shot at an AI-capable grid.
But again, great job Ruy---this is why I follow you, for your common sense, and absolutely right Isabelle. The vax was a terrible idea and will harm us for years to come. But the GOP was also in on that with very few exceptions.
That sounds like wishful thinking to me because I live in Seattle.
And I in Portland. What goes on here now will soon be going on in places where people least expected it.
Totally 💯
Come on over to MAGA from the Dark Side.
Progressives need not worry. I am old enough to remember when Bill Clinton declared, "The era of Big Government is over." I suspect he knew that it was just going dormant in the face of voter sentiment, and that it would roar back due to the unrelenting demand of its beneficiaries.
Progressivism isn't' even dormant - look at the encampments on any university campus for confirmation - but it has been driven out of the center of the public square because voters hate all the policies cited in the column and in the comments. So how can it creep back into contention as a governing philosophy?
I think the key is that the voters don't necessarily hate all Progressive ideals - see the testimonies cited in the column - but they resent the hell out of having those ideals shoved down their throats without any thought toward either their acceptance or the practical effects of wholesale social changes. "Adopt our beliefs and practices or we will silence you, strip you of your employment, and destroy your reputation" is more like Fascism than republican democracy, and it's a good way to provoke backlash.
For one example, Progressives mandated the end of incandescent light bulbs when the only alternative was compact fluorescent lights. CFLs are filled with toxic mercury, far more expensive than traditional light bulbs, and are often so cheaply made that instead of lasting the promised years, they died in weeks. The reason this did not lead to marches on legislatures to get our incandescents back was the happy circumstance that LED bulbs became commercially viable just in time. But that was the effect of long years of research and development, not an instant result of the incandescent bulb ban.
This applies to the current fetish to eliminate fossil fuels. Instead of developing a deeper understanding of how to harmonize human food and energy needs to the natural carbon cycle, Progressives latched onto the idea that fossil fuels are evil and that current "carbon-free" technologies need to be force-fit to current needs. As a result, we all see the horrifying limitations of wind and solar power generation in terms of fluctuating generation that doesn't meet peak demand as well as environmental impacts of windmills (Martha's Vineyard, anyone?) and large solar farms. We also see the terrible limitations of electric vehicles in terms of their mismatch to how consumers want to use their personal transportation and the charging infrastructure that doesn't yet exist.
If, instead of mandates and bans, government established goals and incentives for innovation, research and development would find viable solutions to meet those goals in ways consumers would accept. Instead of backlash, there would be commercial acceptance.
The same principles apply to setting up a well-regulated immigration program that ensures that immigrants match in number, capabilities, and desire to assimilate the goals of our nation and its economy. The same principles apply to reforming education and vocational training to ensure that all children are educated to the best of their ability - including them and their parents being held accountable for their diligently trying to learn - and prepared to be self-sustaining, productive and responsible citizens.
If Progressives can give up the idea of "revolution" that imposes their solutions by fiat and instead take up the hard work of persuading their fellow citizens to adopt Progressive goals in a gradual process of change, maybe the next Progressive surge won't trigger the same backlash we see today.