Politicians and the press keep using the word “progressive” but they never really define it, and given the widely varying political positions of people who are labeled progressive, the word has become somewhat meaningless. Let’s look at three different apparent meanings of “progressive” and where they fall on the American political spectrum (which skews right) as well as a rational political spectrum.
Progressive: According to Republicans
According to Republicans, progressive is a leftist extremist position. It is the same as “liberal” which is the same as “communist authoritarian” and all Democrats are progressive. If you’ve been listening closely to self-described conservatives, they’ve been saying that progressives should be shot for a very long time — certainly before Obama was a thing, and basically going back to the pre-Civil-War era (back when the racists were Democrats).
Progressive: According to Bidenists
According to Bidenists, progressive means working toward perfecting capitalism by making sure the hierarchy of money is the only one that matters. Luckily, that means that if you can prove that there’s another hierarchy going on — like one related to gender, skin color, ethnicity, or religion — they will fight against that kind of injustice and inequity. They just won’t fight against injustice and inequity if it caused by capitalism. The best they can do is urge capitalists to behave ethically, which never works; see, for example, Joe Biden creepily whispering, “Pay them more!” into his mic, but never considering a push to raise the minimum wage. Interestingly, Bidenists think that they can be “progressive” while still maintaining the status quo (“Nothing will fundamentally change.“); you would think that progress might require change.
Progressive: According to Sanders and The Squad
According to the most leftish members of the US Congress, progressive means working toward a balance between the desires of the super rich and those of working people. They want to keep capitalism going, but make it humane and ethical. They don’t suggest taxing the rich out of existence, and they certainly never suggest Other Solutions; they just want the rich to pay their fair share. They’re able to get along with the Bidenists because they agree about all those other things — sexism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and so on.
There are no leftists in Congress.
As much as Americans like to call Democrats “the left”, they are certainly not the left. The Democrats that are closest to the actual left are moderates. I think I can make the case that Erwin Rommel was to the left of the German political spectrum during the Nazi era; does that mean Rommel was a leftist? Of course not!
What is moderate?
A moderate political position balances what the elites want with what normal people want — that is what defines the center of politics. A moderate position means that the rich have to pay their fair share of taxes; the people who have the most money naturally have to give up some of that money to fund the essential functions of government that keep capitalism functioning. From a moral perspective, the rich benefit more from the existence of government, so it makes sense for them to pay more; they also need a smaller percentage of their income to survive. If you only taxed people who have little or no money, there would not be enough funding to keep the government going.
The deference to capitalists that both parties exhibit is the very reason why things like our social safety net are in danger, and if the social safety net fails, capitalism itself will be imperiled. The libertarian claim that capitalism can keep on functioning without the regulatory work of government is absurd; capitalism needs government, and the government is an essential part of capitalism. For one thing, without government, who is the neutral authority that will say who owns the property and enforce property rights?
What is left?
In the context of a capitalist political system like we have, the moderate left consists of people who want to tax the rich in such a way that their power is reduced over time slightly — or at least in a way that keeps them from becoming more wealthy. As we move further left, we might find people who want to tax the wealthy even more, even to the point where billionaires might cease to exist — but through a peaceful process. Further to the left, you’d find people who want to tax multi-millionaires out of existence.
In America, you’d have to take a really long walk leftward to find anyone who wants to use violence to overcome the power of the wealthy. However, there’s that really interesting quote that says, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable,” so that might change over time. If you go far enough left, there might theoretically be some people who want to do violence to the rich in the same way that Republicans want to do violence to their perceived enemies. However, the key detail of what it means to be on the far left would be that you want complete and total democracy as the outcome. In contrast, Republicans, who represent the far right, want a complete end to democracy.
Bidenists are Conservative
Bidenists want to conserve the status quo; they are not progressive at all. They do not want progress. (Republicans are outraged by the status quo and want to move society further to the right.) As conservatives, both groups are engaging in a battle against reality. When Bidenists suggest that not all of the Democratic Party platform (which is slightly progressive to entice voters on the left to support the Democrats) can be accomplished, what they’re going to do is throw out the parts that are authentically progressive and keep the parts that maintain capitalism. Capitalism is what they are conserving, and the real point of even seemingly-progressive things like the child tax credit is to allow capitalism to keep functioning. They certainly pretend that they’re going to create progress, but then something always stops them. Interestingly, the more obvious the obstacles to passing legislation, the more progressive their proposals become. (Republicans were playing this same game with fascism prior to Trump.)
Conserving capitalism requires Bidenists to engage in the same willful hallucination that Republicans engage in, with the emphasis being on imagining that this system is the best possible way and that it will not end all life on earth, which is the scientific consensus. The argument is that our leaders will somehow make it all work out, but without substantially changing anything.