# President Obama warns of progressive "purity" and "circular firing squads" **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 17, 2019, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662 "2019-04-17T06:04:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/221 "2019-07-16T19:56:22Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > The Democratic party seems to be at a crossroads right now. They have a choice between going down the road of Bernie Sanders and taking a hard left turn, and with that, choosing an aggressive, in-your-face “burn the motherfucker to the ground” approach to politics, or they can opt for the more pragmatic approach to politics. I believe this is called an “excluded middle.” There is a wide range of choices that don’t involve impeachment (though impeaching a President who makes Nixon look like an amateur in the crook department would be fitting and proper) but also don’t involve House Dems twiddling their thumbs and saying “if you vote for Dems in a SECOND election, then by God, we’ll actually DO something!” ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/222 "2019-07-16T23:21:21Z")
> [@KidCharlemagne](#): > > \*\*Is there a term for someone who almost always agree with progressive’s goals but almost never agrees with their strategy to achieve them? \*\* So for instance, I’d consider myself ideologically progressive, but think my ideological compatriots are constantly shooting themselves in the foot politically. I see the center-left to be more politically viable and therefore a faster way to ultimately achieve a progressive agenda. I contrast this with someone who is ideologically center-left and seeks that agenda as an end in itself. “Incrementalism” is a term that gets applied to those who _do_ want explicitly-progressive policies, but don’t want to see them forced on a population not yet educated to understand them. Educate the population, and gradually bring on the lefty stuff–that can be called the incremental approach. (My emphasis in the quote.) > [@asahi](#): > > Because having impotent Democrats is better than having Trump, and if you don’t elect “impotent” Democrats, you’ll have 4 more years of lawlessness, 4 more years of attacks on the Constitution, 4 more years of migrants in cages, 4 more years of dangerously unpredictable foreign policy. > > There’s no reason not to show up and vote for a Democrat, even an impotent one. Besides that, the degree to which Democrats are impotent depends on how many voters show up to vote down the ballot. Yes. It gets said a lot, but it needs to sink in: Trump presents an existential crisis—not only to democracy and the rule of law, but very possibly to existence itself. (Or human existence, at least.) Failure to vote for the Democratic candidates (up and down the ballot), no matter who they are, is the equivalent of a vote for Trump. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/223 "2019-07-16T23:26:04Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > “Incrementalism” is a term that gets applied to those who _do_ want explicitly-progressive policies, but don’t want to see them forced on a population not yet educated to understand them. Educate the population, and gradually bring on the lefty stuff–that can be called the incremental approach. (My emphasis in the quote.) > > Yes. It gets said a lot, but it needs to sink in: Trump presents an existential crisis—not only to democracy and the rule of law, but very possibly to existence itself. (Or human existence, at least.) > > Failure to vote for the Democratic candidates (up and down the ballot), no matter who they are, is the equivalent of a vote for Trump. Is incrementalism equivalent to slippery slope? ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/224 "2019-07-16T23:53:07Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Is incrementalism equivalent to slippery slope? No. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/225 "2019-07-16T23:57:50Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Is incrementalism equivalent to slippery slope? More like slippery staircase. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/226 "2019-07-17T00:08:41Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > No. What’s the difference? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/227 "2019-07-17T00:29:05Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > What’s the difference? They’re just different. Look them up. If you are going for some negative sounding description of incrementalism, also Google “ratchet effect”. The ratchet effect is what got the Right so freaked about Obamacare and quite rightly, from their view. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/228 "2019-07-17T00:35:26Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > What’s the difference? A “slippery slope” is an excuse for not doing something. For example: '_If we let people without an extra $2,000 per month to spend on health insurance buy a basic-needs, subsidized policy for only $200 per month, then the next thing you know they’ll expect to be taken care of in luxury while lounging around, doing nothing and paying no taxes.’_ “Incrementalism” is a reason to actually do something, as opposed to waiting until Everything Is Perfect. For example: _‘A perfect health care system would be nice, but in the meantime, let’s let a few extra million people who’ve been uninsured for years, buy affordable health care insurance, because that will be more cost-effective for the nation than having people go to the emergency room for basic care.’_ ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/229 "2019-07-17T01:57:06Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > A “slippery slope” is an excuse for not doing something. > > For example: '_If we let people without an extra $2,000 per month to spend on health insurance buy a basic-needs, subsidized policy for only $200 per month, then the next thing you know they’ll expect to be taken care of in luxury while lounging around, doing nothing and paying no taxes.’_ Not at all. What you just described is a ‘moral hazard’. Incentivize people to do something, and more people will do it. A slippery slope is more like this: “If we pass a law that mandates public health care, then once that’s in place people will start passing laws restricting individual choice on the grounds that the public has to pay for their mistakes. And once we establish that society has a right to control individual behavior for economic reasons, the floodgates to terrible legislation will open up.” Or, “If you force us to register all our guns, you will then have the tools, and therefore the motivation, to start banning them. And once you start banning guns, soon you’ll be banning knives and anything else you don’t like.” Those are slippery slope arguments. > [@](#): > > “Incrementalism” is a reason to actually do something, as opposed to waiting until Everything Is Perfect. > > For example: _‘A perfect health care system would be nice, but in the meantime, let’s let a few extra million people who’ve been uninsured for years, buy affordable health care insurance, because that will be more cost-effective for the nation than having people go to the emergency room for basic care.’_ In a political context, that’s about right. However, an explicitly incrementalist policy pretty much enables slippery slope claims. After all, you can’t have only one increment, or it’s not really an increment - it’s just a change. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/230 "2019-07-17T02:21:37Z")
I suggest you both let octopus Google it. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/231 "2019-07-17T02:28:27Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Because having impotent Democrats is better than having Trump, and if you don’t elect “impotent” Democrats, you’ll have 4 more years of lawlessness, 4 more years of attacks on the Constitution, 4 more years of migrants in cages, 4 more years of dangerously unpredictable foreign policy. This. Progressives are so impatient to enact their wishlists. How about if we just get back to normal first? ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/232 "2019-07-18T01:01:09Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > I suggest you both let octopus Google it. Heh–yes, not much point in arguing with the standard conservative position that virtually all government action amounts to Moral Hazard. Oddly enough, conservatives never seem to apply that principle to the sub-prime mortgage crisis—according to them, those bankers were all just misunderstood visionaries using their initiative. But that’s another topic altogether. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/233 "2019-07-18T05:02:30Z")
I actually do see a lot of right wingers who hate bankers. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/234 "2019-07-18T23:51:49Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I actually do see a lot of right wingers who hate bankers. I suppose, but wasn’t the Tea Party line a complaint that the bad, bad, government had decided to give our tax dollars to the big banks, in an unjust and unfair bail-out? Thus putting the blame on Government, rather than on the bankers… (In any case, kind of a side issue.) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/235 "2019-07-19T00:12:39Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > What’s the difference? If I say, “I’m going to do X, then I’m going to do Y,” that’s not a slippery slope, that’s just me making plans. If I say, “I’m going to do X,” and you say, “If you do X, then you must then do Y,” that’s a slippery slope, because I didn’t say I was intending to do Y, and there’s no reason I necessarily must do Y once I’ve done X. If I say, “I’m going to make a sandwich, then eat it,” that’s not a slippery slope, that’s just me having one plan that’s contingent on the other. If I say, “I’m going to make a sandwich,” and you say, “That means next you’re going to eat a sandwich,” that’s a slippery slope; I may be making this sandwich for someone else, for example, and have no sandwich eating plans of my own. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/236 "2019-07-19T00:39:22Z")
Well, Miller wins the “stupidest explanation of slippery slope” competition. Now, I suggest octopus goes ahead and Google it. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2019, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/237 "2019-07-28T20:15:22Z")
Here is a good article on wanting too much purity in a Dem candidate [MSN](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/spare-me-the-purity-racket/ar-AAEWOe0) ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2019, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/238 "2019-07-28T21:06:33Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Here is a good article on wanting too much purity in a Dem candidate > > [MSN](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/spare-me-the-purity-racket/ar-AAEWOe0) …that wasn’t a good article about “wanting too much purity in a Dem candidate.” That was a terrible article written by a partisan hack where she attacked strawman versions of the recent criticisms of her writing and the paper she writes for. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2019, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/239 "2019-07-28T21:09:59Z")
I read somewhere around 9% of Obama 2012 voters voted for Trump in 2016. That seems like a lot to me. I wonder how many of that 9% were Bernie fans. Probably more than a few. ---
**Author:** ![Boycott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boycott/32/6741_2.png) [@Boycott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boycott)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2019, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662/240 "2019-07-28T21:50:45Z")
I would have thought that if Bernie or bust people had any real impact on election day it would have been because quite a few stayed at home choosing to not vote, as opposed to voting for candidates they may have thought were two sides of the same horrid coin. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-obama-warns-of-progressive-purity-and-circular-firing-squads/832662.md?page=13)