Liberals always on offense, conservatives always on defense

[Velocity]

@Wesley_Clark

I’ve always felt it was the opposite in America. Conservatives are constantly declaring war on liberal accomplishments like a welfare state, progressive taxes, human rights, civil rights, political rights, environmental laws, labor laws, etc and liberals are always playing defense, trying to stop conservatives from rolling back their achievements.

Liberals care about these achievements, conservatives do not. So liberals are always playing defense, trying to stop the rollback of all of the above listed things.

I think in the long run, society tends liberal because healthy, educated, wealthy, middle class societies tend to lean liberal, and that seems to be the trajectory of society. Even if there are setbacks, things still move that way. Germany now is way more liberal than Germany in 1920 and they had a huuuuuge setback in the middle. So in that regard I agree with OP that conservatism tends to lose long term. But what OP didn’t mention is that conservatives are constantly declaring war on every leftist achievement they can for perpetuity and they succeed quite a few times too.

Look at the US in the last decade. Gerrymandering is worse, voter suppression is worse, attempts to overturn the ACA, tax cuts on the rich, rolling back environmental and labor laws, etc.

In any war, there will be counter-attacks that muddle things up and make it hard to perceive who is on offense or defense. But if we look at Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren/Andrew Yang, for instance, their proposals are a clear case of offense: Big proposed changes to the status quo. Universal basic income, single-payer healthcare, student loan debt forgiveness, probably a huge overhaul of the tax system, much greater focus on tackling climate change, etc.

“Offense” doesn’t necessarily mean “bad” (I think that’s what some people in this thread are confusing/conflating; they think offense means one side is doing wrong.) Indeed, I’d argue that many of the Bernie/Warren proposals are just what is needed. But they are indeed a big, aggressive step forward for the liberal-progressive cause, most definitely not status quo.