Progressive's and liberal's (mostly young people) think they have discovered a great new way of doing things that nobody's ever thought of before. They also think that digging dirt and converting it to cars and kitchen appliances is destroying the planet. Nothing could be further from the truth. These liberals totally miss truth.
Before America, the world ran entirely by central planning. Progressives think that if only we had a smart enough and benevolent enough dictator, then he could get things accomplished "for the people." And this is exactly the way hundreds of countries ran for thousands of years. One dictator after another. Until America came along. America said, enough. Enough with the dictators and enough with central planning.
America grew and prospered. When America started, over 95% of the country and the world were farmers, scratching out a meager existence. Poverty, pestilence and squalor were the norm. But, America changed all that. By adopting "right-wing" principles of freedom, America achieved the highest standard of living the world had ever seen. Taken for granted by today's progressives, this American revolution raised billions of people out of poverty.
Now the progressive liberal asks us to return to central planning? He points to the relatively minor bad-actors (e.g. slavery, pollution, etc.) as examples of why freedom can't be allowed, yet he forgets pollution and slavery existed (and still exists) under central planning? Right-wing America cleaned up its pollution and eliminated slavery on its own, so these minor quibbles are no justification to return to the dictatorships of socialism or communism. The filthiest countries in the world are run by central planners, because without private ownership, nobody cares about taking care of property.
Yes, there is a fundamental battle for the future between young "progressive liberals" and the "right-wing." And the battle must be fought, not papered-over as the article suggests. Either we are going to be free (as the right-wing advocates) or we are going to have dictators, as the progressives want? There is almost no middle ground. Half a dictator makes everyone mad. And that's exactly what we have today; half a dictator.