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Why Progressives Will Always Fail
As I was working on another post, I had the realization that the Progressives will never be successful in transforming our country into a Leftist state. Their goals are to create a perfect country run by perfect people to create a perfect future. What they never seem to understand is how deeply flawed their aspirations—and they—are.
First, they are the most naïve people among us. No matter how intelligent they are, they have no wisdom. No matter how educated they are, they don’t understand human nature. Regardless of their passion for changing the country and everyone else, they are the ones who are incapable of learning deeply and understanding (as James Madison did) the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of human beings.
They think by offering a flawless world that we will all line up behind them. But we only need to look at them to realize the impossibility of their goals. These are people who need to feed off others’ accomplishments, steal the results of others’ successes, and are prepared to try to destroy the very elements of human nature that allow us to thrive and grow. It is our diversity, which they celebrate, that forecasts the failure of their dreams.
We have had too much success as a country and as a people for them to enlist or coerce us. We are a country born in freedom with more wealth and opportunity than any country in the world. Why would we give that up?
Most Americans (who aren’t Progressives) at some level realize the bounties they have realized. They can pursue any job they might desire. They can live anywhere in the country. They can have families of any size. They can travel wherever they choose. They can worship however they wish, in any community they choose, and can change their allegiance at any time.
Progressivism doesn’t take into account that Americans, of all the peoples in the world, are incredibly blessed. They don’t need to steal from others or give up any of the prospects for their futures. We speak the language of gratitude, opportunity, creativity, possibility, and fulfillment.
Progressives don’t have a chance.
Published in Culture
We have been watching the Washington mini-series on History channel. I have to marvel that we had men like Washington and his generals to persevere against the British and that there were men like Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Franklin who came together at that same moment in history to write our Constitution. What a miracle!
And half our country want to throw this miracle away. I can’t understand it.
I’m amazed by these men and what they accomplished, too. I think it was a miracle.
I think a number of things may combine to move us closer to center. All those kids who will graduate from college may be hit by the reality of opportunity that is available to everyone. We don’t need to take from one person to give to another. Once they are away from the college environment, I hope they will experience the cognitive dissonance caused by a smack by reality. I also have other hopes, but mainly I think they will realize what they have to give up to realize “perfection.” Let’s hope!
You and I (and probably most people on Ricochet) may know Progressives are doomed to ultimate failure, but I fear that there may be enough people who don’t recognize the many problems with the Progressive assumptions that the Progressives might be able to assume a lot of power to cause a lot of harm before their ultimate failure becomes clear. Too many people (voters), even if they recognize their own limitations and fallible nature, seem to believe that there are people out there who are or can be made perfect and therefore should be entitled to tell everyone else how to live.
Pollyanna! I’m not that hopeful.
I object outright to socialists using the term ‘progressive’ to describe themselves and their intent. Socialism is no more progressive than blood letting and mercury pills! It is been tried, and retried, and it has always failed. It never had a chance for many of the reasons you list, but mostly because it requires first and foremost a fundamental change in human nature.
Progress would mean flying cars and cancer cures, not some moldy 150 year old failed fever dream of totalitarians. As of today, the constitution remains the most progressive governmental foundation ever created. It isn’t progress unless it moves us closer to that original premise of individual rights, property rights, and consent of the governed.
Just watched the final episode last night. The show was very well done,Washington was truly a remarkable man. He is the undisputed father of the country!
I agree. But I think it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the goals of overhauling the entire educational system, cutting back on large government and other huge needs. Instead, I expect there will be cracks in the Progressive model, and every chance we get, we need to explore them. Trump is doing his part (as annoying as he can be); most recently there is coming down on China, removing the Obama leftovers, reducing regulations–and yet things continue to get better. My hope, as I said before, that some people will start asking questions. I think many people will also tire of the shrieking of the Leftists and look elsewhere. Thanks, @fullsizetabby!
Maybe I am! But I think we are afraid to hope, to anticipate a bright future. Although I don’t always follow my own advice, I hope that I will keep them from ruining my hope and dreams for the future!
They’ve actually been quite successful in recent years in making fundamental changes to the culture of the country. And they are not naive.
I think we have to examine who “they” are (and I wasn’t clear). I think the Progressive elites are not naive; they have set out to destroy this country. But I believe most mainstream Lefties are going along and they are naive. I think they will start to notice that the dogma is not adding up. But we can disagree, Mark.
Another reason I won’t give up is because of the pockets of hope. The demonstration against new gun laws in VA was successful; actions against those who would restrict free speech on college campuses; the revitalized voices of Republicans. I’m also putting a lot of hope in the Durham report; in spite of the reluctant media, let’s hope the results are consequential and are literally blasted all over the world.
Look for my Group Writing post on Washington on Saturday night!
Naïve is an accurate, if a bit charitable, description.
In my experience, the vast majority of people are not ideological, at least they haven’t thought it through that deeply.
There are those who vote for whomever they ‘like’ the most. Not like their politics- like their appearance, their ‘vibe’, their charisma. They like the way they feel when they see them.
There are those who vote for whomever will ‘give’ them the most. I know people who are unashamed of this, they are proud that essentially their vote is for sale. Somehow, they never really get what they are after, but they still have no deeper basis to select a candidate than what did he promise I would get.
There are clearly those who only see one issue. Abortion. Their entire political world is about the !Right! to eliminate the unborn from their wombs.
And then there are those who vote for whomever they think will put them in the cool kids clique. If Charlize Theron and Brad Pitt are for a candidate, they wouldn’t think of bucking that. They wouldn’t want to fall out of the club and look like losers!
There are plenty of other such types, but sadly, I think about 60% of the citizenry is in the overall no ideology group. Luckily, about 75% of that 60% doesn’t even bother register to vote.
Which is why I don’t believe in forced voting or pressure to vote. Some folks are smart enough to know they don’t have a clear enough view to make a choice.
All you say is true, @phenry. But I keep thinking of the independents, too, and they probably cross a lot of the categories you describe. Still, because they aren’t necessarily trapped in ideology, they can step back just a little and don’t have a cause to defend. I’m hoping they see how things have improved in this country and know who and what is behind it, and will vote accordingly.
I’m personally tired of complaining about all the things that are working against us. I think I am a realist, yet wallowing in the negativity doesn’t help our cause one bit. And I think we will defeat the Progressives, but we will need to be patient and determined. I do not want to give them my country!
Tyranny and fascism is the natural state of government. Leftists just want to end our experiment in self-governance. We are always just a generation away from throwing it all way. Maybe half a generation today.
Yes! And the same with “liberal”. There is nothing liberal about socialism. Socialism means a tyrant (or party of tyrants) controlling every aspect of your life. In my book, “progressive” means “proto-socialist”.
I missed this comment! I especially appreciate the bolded sentences. Well said, @phenry!
For some places in the country it’s been too late for a long time. I’m not sure if Chicago can ever really recover, for instance.
But when you get away from the coasts, there’s potential! Except for Chicago, maybe. Thanks, @edg
I must respectfully disagree with the premise in bold. I hope you correct about the first sentence. Leftists try to sell people on giving them power in order to achieve the aspired for state. But Leftists, at least those that lead for extended periods of time, do not care whether the promised state is delivered so long as they maintain power. Those leaders do understand the delusion of the aspiration. There are from time to time deluded charismatic persons who are used by others to front a Leftist movement, but are discarded at some point in favor of those who have been using that person to obtain power.
The terrible (not so) secret of Leftism is that they do understand that America as it existed for its first century could not become a Leftist state. Therefore there has been the long project to educate the successive generations both formally through the academy and informally through the culture to accept Leftist positions as the default for virtue. The have sought to establish progressivism as a dominant religion that would displace other belief systems that the people historically followed. And the coup de grâce is to replace the inconvenient part of the electorate with people from elsewhere that they believe will deliver them power through ostensible democracy.
The Trump presidency and Republican Senate has been an absolute disaster for progressives and their plan to secure the courts and eliminate any Constitutional barriers to legislation/executive action. And if President Trump is reelected and the Republicans continue to control the Senate for the balance of his second term, the progressive project will have a massive problem to regain control of the courts the way they did for an extended period of time starting in the 1960s.
Bernie Sanders is likely to win the Democrat nomination. The Democrat nominee will likely receive about half the vote.
So a known communist, running as a socialist, is likely to receive about half the vote in our next presidential election.
I like your optimism. But I think you’re mistaken.
For what it’s worth, I really hope you’re right & I’m wrong…
It’s difficult for me to be optimistic in some areas. I know several people who apparently really believe that the current booming economy, low unemployment, etc, is actually “leftover Obama.” They don’t believe Trump did ANY of it. And if Bernie should win in November and the economy tanks etc, they’ll say THAT was due to Trump.
My mother doesn’t believe the Greek columns at Obama’s inauguration actually happened. She doesn’t believe Eric Holder, Lorretta Lynch, Fast And Furious, et al, really happened. If she saw a video of Obama saying “Now is when the rising oceans begin to recede!” she would say it was faked by Trump. Because in (what passes for) her mind, no Democrat ever had a cult of personality. Only Trump.
When the Regressive’s fail, they inevitably bring us with them. Then we get blamed for the failure.
Speaking of Lefty tyrants, did anyone else get a weird chill, when Bloomberg promised to make the trains run on time? (see here)
Because we didn’t help them do socialism ENOUGH, and that’s why it failed.
@susanquinn, I began this comment by typing “I admire, but do not share, your optimism,” but I had to check myself because I realize it’s not true. The truth is I don’t admire your optimism, because I think it is unwarranted. (I want to say naive, but that sounds harsh, and I’m not trying to be harsh.) A few thoughts came to my mind as I read your post:
I’d love to be convinced that I am wrong, but I don’t see how this ends well.
Only by G-d’s grace. See Heinlein.
It’s entirely possible that Freeven is correct. Much of my focus is on insulating myself from the foolishness of many of those around me, simply for long-term (as long as possible, anyway) survival. Being a paid-off homeowner is perhaps the biggest part of it all. In a serious economic… downturn… people who rent are going to be in the biggest trouble, first. Even if President Bernie orders no evictions for non-payment, it would get bad, quickly.
They may be naive, but they also tend to be angry and supremely confident of their own righteousness and superior intelligence. That makes it really hard to get their to see that they’re wrong, because so much of their ego is tied up in the idea that they know best and should therefore be able to tell everyone else what to do.
Usually, that type of egotistical, disdainful attitude will do itself in at some point, but not in all areas — just look at the situations many current big cities are facing because they’ve voted for leftist government, and then continue to vote them or people just like them in despite the obvious growing problems.
Then the question becomes how low a level of quality of life do people have to suffer before just enough are willing to try something different. In New York, the answer 27 years ago was six murders per day under David Dinkins, but it took a really long time to reach the level of tolerance before voters would elect a Rudy Giulaini, and it’s obvious that as of now, city’s like Chicago, San Francisco or Seattle haven’t reached that level yet (we’ll see about New York in 2021, especially if bail reform is still in place).
While it’s less likely that someone running a big city into the ground today is going to get to run the White House, Pete Buttigieg’s kind of in that territory — South Bend didn’t turn into Shangra-La under his watch — and he’s managed to frame himself as a moderate in the Democratic field, thanks to Bernie moving the Overton Window of what a moderate is in the Democratic Party well to the left of its past location. Toss in an economic downturn at the wrong time, like the 2008 mortgage crisis, and it’s pretty easy to see a stealth leftist like Buttigieg making it into office if people aren’t paying attention to his past record.