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The very important issue in the 2028 election

Craig234

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As long has been the case, the country needs Progressive policies. 2028 has a large chance to be a large win for the Democratic candidate, barring Republican sabotage of the election.

The field as I see it currently for Democrats has no Progressives - Newsom, Harris, Shapiro, Whitman, et al. That's an uphill battle for a Progressive. AOC seems to be the most prominent, since Bernie is clearly not running, but any Progressive will be a relatively 'new face' to the country. But it's important a Progressive is nominated, for this rare chance to get the country on track. If we were to elect another 'centrist', it's history repeating, another Biden.
 

Define "progressive," and explain why Harris, Newsome, Shapiro, and Whitman are not progressives.
 
Phys251 said:
Define "progressive," and explain why Harris, Newsome, Shapiro, and Whitman are not progressives.
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That's a large topic to 'define'. The Democratic Party has two main factions, the Progressive faction and whatever you want to call the rest - centrist, corporatist. They differ on policies and priorities, though of course there is a good amount of overlap.

One way it's been described is that Republicans are the party of oligarchy, and the non-Progressive Democrats are 'oligarchy-lite'. To understand that needs understanding the situation in the country - how the country has been on the road to increasing oligarchy sinc Reagan, reaching new highs in inequality, and how Democrats have had modest reversals of bits of that but largely left Republican policies in place.

It needs recognizing that those Republican policies, mostly left in place by Democrats, have redistributed over $50 trillion to the very wealthy, and how only the Progressives are fighting for the solutions, while the other Democrats 'chip away' with much lesser policies.

For example, Bernie successfully got $10 trillion bill for the American people supported by Biden - and then the rest of the Democrats cut it down to under $1 trillion IIRC.

Progressives have 'the Progressive Caucus' in the House with close to 100 of the over 200 Democratic members. The policies, views and politics of the candidates I named are aligned with the non-Progressive Democrats - though they might try to claim the level when it's convenient like Hillary did. They will sometimes agree with a Progressive policy position, but that isn't enough to make them 'a Progressive'.

For example, when Biden agreed to Bernie's bill, it didn't make Biden 'a Progressive', though he deserves a lot of credit for at least initially supporting it.

He remains the president who also did all kinds of things at odds with Progressives. He didn't fight to undo, for example, trump's tax cuts, or to pass universal healthcare, or other policies. He remains the person who DEFEATED the actual Progressive in 2020, Bernie, leading to trump in 2024, uniting the non-Progressive Democrats.

I could go on, but as I said it's a very large topic to discuss the policy and political differences, which should be pretty clear. Review the Progressive Caucus policy and budget documents and compare them to the main party's. In short I'd say, the main party isn't fighting to reverse as much of the move to oligarchy as Progressives. They make much smaller changes, leaving great inequality.
 

So it has to do with the size of the changes proposed? Or is that just an example of the differences?
 
Phys251 said:
So it has to do with the size of the changes proposed? Or is that just an example of the differences?
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These words are somewhat fluid, given the 'national politics' changing. Let's start with whether it's recognized that since Reagan the country has been greatly on the road to increasing oligarchy - and how Much non-Progressive Democrats have allowed those changes to be kept, versus Progressives wanting to undo them to go back to much lower inequality. Are those things clear?
 

My goal is to find what the threshold is. Let's say that a candidate is running for office. How do I know if they are a progressive or not? It seems based on what you're telling me that that is a convoluted question.
 
@Phys251 This chart shows a lot of the issue. Note the high inequality before FDR, the "Great Compression" after FDR until Reagan, and the increase in inequality since Reagan. IMO Progressives would like to move more toward the Great Compression. Ironically, that could be called wanting to Make America Great Again.

 
Phys251 said:
My goal is to find what the threshold is. Let's say that a candidate is running for office. How do I know if they are a progressive or not? It seems based on what you're telling me that that is a convoluted question.
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I'm not saying convoluted, but I am saying somewhat complicated to define - even while now it's pretty obvious.

I will note it will get a lot worse if Progressives start to win power, because many, many non-Progressives will start trying to steal the label and to re-define it, making the question 'who is a real Progressive' much more pertinent. Now, with Progressives as 'underdogs', not many people are trying to steal the label- though they still do when it's convenient,, with examples like Hillary and Fetterman.

Why do you want to 'find a threshold'? You can practically have that just by looking at the policies of the Progressive Caucus or Bernie and comparing them to the Democratic Party's policies and seeing where the Democratic Party supports 'smaller' policies that maintain high levels of inequality, while not worsening them like Republicans do.

Another practical issue to look at is donors - Progressives tend to take little if any 'big money' donations and to rely on small donors (or possibly some larger donations by supporters of the Progressive policies), while other Democrats rely much more on corporate and 'big money' donors, and tend to support policies those big donors favor.
 

OK, so one of the criteria is how much SuperPAC money they take. That's quantifiable. But whether a particular Dem supports "bigger" or "smaller" policies is tougher, because things vary wildly from bill to bill. For example, what is the minimum "progressive" level of income taxes that should be put on those making a million bucks a year?
 
Phys251 said:
My goal is to find what the threshold is. Let's say that a candidate is running for office. How do I know if they are a progressive or not?
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Ask them if they support medicare for all. If yes, then they are a progressive.

Only progressives are stupid enough to support such a bad policy.
 
aociswundumho said:
Ask them if they support medicare for all. If yes, then they are a progressive.

Only progressives are stupid enough to support such a bad policy.
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So you, as opposed to @Craig234, think that there is a specific, easily-definable threshold for being a "progressive"?
 
As I said, the words have fluidity. It's not that "39.9% tax" is not Progressive, and "40.0% tax" is Progressive. I posted a chart with big differences as a guideline, that should help answer it. A simple guideline: Progressives, reverse tax cuts for the rich since Reagan. Democrats, maintain or slightly reduce the cuts. Republicans, give more cuts. That's one issue, but a main issue.
 
Craig234 said:
As long has been the case, the country needs Progressive policies. 2028 has a large chance to be a large win for the Democratic candidate, barring Republican sabotage of the election.
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Whatever your thoughts on what "the country needs", you overestimate the broad public appeal of Progressives. What the country needs, and what it is willing to vote into office, would seem to be two widely divergent things.
And it's worth remembering that it was the Centrist Biden who thoroughly beat Trump in 2020.

I suspect that even the gay Centrist and pragmatist Pete Buttigieg would have a better chance than the more progressive AOC, ... just as one example. Alas, Americans are not very progressive.
 

There's a large divergence, then, between the progressives an mainstream Democrats on, for example, taxation of the rich? The line is pretty easy to draw?
 
Phys251 said:
So you, as opposed to @Craig234, think that there is a specific, easily-definable threshold for being a "progressive"?
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Yes. They are basically communists who are too embarrassed to admit it, so they call themselves "progressives".
 
aociswundumho said:
Yes. They are basically communists who are too embarrassed to admit it, so they call themselves "progressives".
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So all I gotta do is say "I support M4A," and presto, I'm a progressive. Neat.
 
@Phys251 Another guideline: While LBJ wasn't about the word Progressive, look at dozens of policies benefiting democracy and the American people, his "War on Poverty" that reduced the number of people in poverty by 1/3, and you will see a lot of 'Progressive' policy changes. For one example, Medicare was seen as a start toward universal healthcare - that didn't continue. I'd say he was the last 'Progressive' president.
 
I also think you underestimate the influence of money in our politics. No matter how much better and saner progressive policies may be for the country - and I agree that they would be - until and unless we take the money out of our politics, they will always be skewed to serving the "special interests" over the broader interests of the nation as a whole.
 
Phys251 said:
There's a large divergence, then, between the progressives an mainstream Democrats on, for example, taxation of the rich? The line is pretty easy to draw?
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I'd say yes. While it's not an exact line like a speed limit, it's pretty clear between reversing the 'tax cuts for the rich' for decades, versus continuing them or minor rollbacks. Politically, Nixon began to weaponize wealth politically - I'd say a Progressive priority is to try to roll that back, as well as the corruption of the courts, also, though that would take decades and we're not close to doing it.
 

That's where I can't agree. You said it yourself--the words have fluidity. While I concede that many if not most mainstream Democrats don't push hard enough for significant tax hikes for the rich, neither do I find a way of saying that this candidate wants a 40% top tax, this one a 32% top tax, etc. Such data may exist, but I am not aware of them.
 
Phys251 said:
So all I gotta do is say "I support M4A," and presto, I'm a progressive. Neat.
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No, you have to actually believe in it. You have to believe that increasing the number of people on medicare from 65 million to 330 million, doubling the amount we currently pay in taxes, and giving all 330 million people as much "free" healthcare as they want would be a positive thing for the country.
 
The policy differences are clear, though, and they're basically different governing ideologies. Progressives want more democracy and benefits for the American people. Other Democrats are more balanced serving 'big donors' over the people more, where I used levels of inequality as one leading measure. I still don't know quite you're trying to learn about this. More democracy and opportunity, less inequality, is more Progressive.
 

Oh, I see, if I believe, then I am automatically lumped in as a progressive.


If I knew the answer to getting big money out of politics, I'd let you know. Only shot I see is to retake the Senate and White House and pack the courts, and not every Democrat--the mainstream Dems, I suppose--are on board with that.
 
Phys251 said:
If I knew the answer to getting big money out of politics, I'd let you know. Only shot I see is to retake the Senate and White House and pack the courts, and not every Democrat--the mainstream Dems, I suppose--are on board with that.
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Yup. And it's 'unpack the courts', not 'pack the courts'.
 
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