# Progressive is the new colored
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [November 11, 2016, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537 "2016-11-11T21:05:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2016, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/1 "2016-11-11T21:05:48Z")
The majority of progressives are women. The majority of progressives are people of color. Therefore, the majority of its leaders have to be women, and a majority of those women must be of color.
Are white progressives and male progressives too weak, dumb, or evil to lead? No, its just that there aren’t enough. A movement that consists mainly of non-whites and women can’t be led by white men without risking the strong appearance of illegitimacy. If a progressive movement is to exist, then women, people of color, and especially women of color will have to take the lead. If they don’t, such a movement will be weak and ineffectual.
Also dangerous to the movement: white squeamishness about becoming a minority group within progressivism. Prideful reluctance about having to crawl to people of color and say “Please save our country.” We either get over it, or have no one to represent us at all.
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### Author:  [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/2 "2016-11-11T21:12:22Z")
Oh yeah, forgot the prediction: the first female president of the US will be Black, Latina, Asian, or NA/Pac. Isl.
Mods, move this to Elections if you want, I don’t give a rat’s ass.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2016, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/3 "2016-11-11T21:33:30Z")
You, of course, have cites to back up the claims you made in the first sentence of the OP, right?
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### Author:  [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/4 "2016-11-11T21:35:24Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> You, of course, have cites to back up the claims you made in the first sentence of the OP, right?
Nope.
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### Author:  [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2016, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/5 "2016-11-11T21:57:41Z")
OP, have you ever heard of Bernie Sanders ? Or Diane Russel? Or Chellie Pingree? There are lots of white progressives.
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### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2016, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/6 "2016-11-11T22:02:27Z")
This is all news to this progressive voter here. I’m not white? Wow, that’s news to me…
Sounds to me more like the OP doesn’t like/agree with progressives and this is how he marginalizes them in his mind. Do I have a cite to support that? But I don’t give a rat’s ass…
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2016, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/7 "2016-11-11T22:17:56Z")
I may be only dimly recalling (I promise to provide at least as many cites as the OP), but doesn’t “progressive” as a negative label date back to at least the 1960s? I have the impression it was used to label people who wanted school integration, or wanted to stop school corporal punishments, or stop prison corporal punishments, or stop the use of capital punishment, or thought girls should play sports, or, y’know… all that gay liberal Alan Alda stuff.
It was a positive label when it could be applied to he-men like Teddy Roosevelt, though.
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### Author:  [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2016, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/8 "2016-11-11T22:22:07Z")
What is your response if the American electorate uses the same logic? That is, it notes that most Americans are white, so concludes most of its leaders should be white too, and thus rejects the progressive minority candidate.
During the Dem primaries there was a lot of friction between the minorities who supported Clinton and the mostly white leftists who supported Bernie. Understandably, Clinton had been more involved in the black communities going back decades and even before she was a politician, so they felt more loyalty to her. One of their arguments was that Bernie’s class based socialism wouldn’t address racism and that he was out of touch with their concerns, mostly spending his time in vanilla Vermont. And then Hillary ended up losing the election in part due to white economic anxiety.
You see similar arguments break out in feminist groups. Should men be allowed to lead women’s organizations? Can men be feminists, or just “allies”? I’m reminded of this old [Onion article.](http://www.theonion.com/article/man-finally-put-in-charge-of-struggling-feminist-m-2338)
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### Author:  [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2016, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/9 "2016-11-11T22:29:18Z")
> [@boffking](#):
>
> OP, have you ever heard of Bernie Sanders ? Or Diane Russel? Or Chellie Pingree? There are lots of white progressives.
There are lots of a lot of things. Numerically, I’m not sure there are enough of this particular thing.
I wrote this OP in a (maybe emotional) response to how the white vote went in this election. I’m probably not making myself as clear as I’d like. But it’s also fair to say that you folks are not reading as carefully as you could. I know there are “lots” of white progressives. And I also know that not not everybody who is progressive is non-white. Nothing in what I wrote can reasonably be interpreted either of those ways.
I guess I was wondering whether we could empower more women and people of color to be our leaders, not because white and/or male progressives are weak or stupid or evil, but because there don’t seem to be enough of them.
But it occurs to me that I’m really in no shape to be posting about this or anything else right now. If there really isn’t anything to discuss here, the mods might as well close the thread. Sorry if I wasted everybody’s time.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/10 "2016-11-11T22:32:27Z")
I suggest anyone considering starting a new thread about the 2016 election put at least as much thought into doing so as they did in casting their vote.
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### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2016, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/11 "2016-11-11T22:47:50Z")
> [@cuauhtemoc](#):
>
> … a movement will be weak and ineffectual.
the progressive movement IS weak and ineffectual.
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### Author:  [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2016, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/12 "2016-11-12T08:53:06Z")
I think it’s probably true that there are more female progressives than male, but I think there are also a lot more white progressives than minority. I’ve just never seen much evidence that minorities are interested in left-wing candidates. They seem to prefer the more mainstream Democrats.
Or perhaps what you actually meant to say was Democrats? Because yeah, whites are becoming a minority within the Democratic Party and I think that has very significant implications for the party going forward. The party will actually be LESS progressive on issues other than inequality, it’s going to become more religious, and less interested in climate change.
Much as small government types might not have a home after Trump’s takeover, pure progressives also might be left out of the next realignment.
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2016, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/13 "2016-11-12T13:31:05Z")
I disagree.
The majority of progressives are whites, and they are the best educated of the 9 typology groups pew researched. 52% have a college degree. I don’t have a cite for the white part, but I think progressives are 70-80%+ white, or at the very least more white than the public at large.
[http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/26/typology-comparison/types/solid-liberals/](http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/26/typology-comparison/types/solid-liberals/)
College educated, financially stable whites are not an oppressed group. We are the opposite.
Also why does OP believe there aren’t any white male progressives in leadership positions? The news and politics is filled with them. Off the top of my head:
Bernie Sanders
Howard Dean
Sheldon Whitehouse
Sherrod Brown
Keith Olbermann
Dennis Kucinich
Paul Krugman
Jon Stewart
Stephen Colbert
Glenn Greenwald
Alan Grayson
etc, etc
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2016, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/14 "2016-11-12T13:34:07Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> the progressive movement IS weak and ineffectual.
Progressives only make up 15-20% of the electorate. In that regards yeah we tend to be weak because 80-85% of the nation do not identify as progressive. But this nation has a long history of progressive accomplishments that were either achieved by progressives or pushed by progressives from the fringes into the mainstream.
Abolishing slavery
Abolishing child labor
Creating the minimum wage
Social security
Medicare
Medicaid
Obamacare
Voting rights act
Civil rights act
Women’s suffrage
Animal rights
Environmental protections
Drug law reform
Gay marriage
Incorporating human rights into foreign policy
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### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/15 "2016-11-12T13:42:43Z")
As others mentioned, it’s not that easy because as things stand, right now there is friction and conflict between whether the more urgent issues are economic-class based or race-gender-identity based. And even within the factions - for instance many women of color have their reservations about what they see as white-college-graduate-middle-class-women-dominated feminism.
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> But this nation has a long history of progressive accomplishments that were either achieved by progressives or pushed by progressives from the fringes into the mainstream.
>
> Abolishing slavery
> Abolishing child labor
> Creating the minimum wage
> Social security
> Medicare
> Medicaid
> Obamacare
> Voting rights act
> Civil rights act
> Women’s suffrage
> Animal rights
> Environmental protections
> Drug law reform
> Gay marriage
> Incorporating human rights into foreign policy
Before someone else brings up “Republicans did that!” for some of the items, please try to remember: These were policies that were progressive – and even disruptively radical – _at the time they were proposed_. Yet some of them are now widely considered that of course it must be so.
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### Author:  [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2016, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/16 "2016-11-12T14:08:05Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> I may be only dimly recalling (I promise to provide at least as many cites as the OP), but doesn’t “progressive” as a negative label date back to at least the 1960s?
Actually it’s been used in a negative as well as positive sense far longer. For instance (from OED):
> [@](#):
>
> 1866 H. Bushnell Vicarious Sacrifice iii. v. 333 The disappointment I may inflict on certain progressives, or disciples of the new gospel.
> [@](#):
>
> 1940 ‘G. Orwell’ Inside Whale 176 There are the ‘progressives’, the yea-sayers, the Shaw-Wells type, always leaping forward to embrace the ego-projections which they mistake for the future.
But _revenons à nos moutons_. I certainly don’t think there will be a lack of white progressives now or in the future and I trust the most fitting candidate will always be chosen, regardless of gender, race, sexual preference or taste in hats.
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### Author:  [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2016, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/17 "2016-11-12T19:28:20Z")
I’m not sure I understand your terms. Are you using progressive as more or less a synonym for Left or liberal? As I see it they’re similar but not identical, as classic liberalism is public spirited but not necessarily leftish, while the far Left is socialist or outright Communist, with many who designate themselves as such holding liberals in contempt as essentially an “establishment” unto themselves.
I’ve found the word progressive increasingly retro in my (Boomer) life, and it’s seldom used nowadays. A hundred years ago it meant something. In the 1912 presidential election Progressive party candidate Teddy Roosevelt came in second after winner Woodrow Wilson in the general election, with Republican incumbent William Howard Taft lagging behind in third place.
As the years have gone by, thanks largely to FDR’s New Deal there has been a merging of the often populist-rural leaning old school progressives with liberal reformer types, with leftists willing to bend to get into the political mainstream, and the coalition lasted a long time, began to break up some time in the 60s with the Vietnam era protests and the so-called “youth revolution” in manners and morals.
In the presidential election of this past week Republican Donald Trump essentially campaigned as a progressive-populist type, triumphing in the Southeastern and Midwestern states. The Left of Bernie Sanders got frozen out by the much better funded and connected Clinton supporters, whom I would class as liberals but not true leftists. They pay lip service to the Left but clearly their hearts aren’t in it.
We seem to be in a new era now, and I suppose rightly, as it’s a new Millenium and things are changing fast. Maybe we need new words to describe those who believe in reform, who desire a large, activist government, and who care for the poor and working class people of America.
I don’t think I’m nitpicking in carrying on like this. There appears to be some genuine confusion as to who’s on what side and whether they mean what they say and will act upon it, and those who speak in broad terms, complete with rhetorical flourishes and turns of phrase that suggest more belonging to a club than actually caring for other people. These are strange days indeed. Just sayin’ 😕
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### Author:  [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2016, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/18 "2016-11-12T19:36:13Z")
Bryan Eckers wrote: "I suggest anyone considering starting a new thread about the 2016 election put at least as much thought into doing so as they did in casting their vote. "
I think he probably did.
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### Author:  [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2016, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/19 "2016-11-12T19:40:07Z")
Based on what I see online, “Progressive” is the new “Whiny, hysterical little bitch who loses their shit over halloween costumes because they’ve got nothing better to do and have no sense of proportion”.
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2016, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/progressive-is-the-new-colored/771537/20 "2016-11-12T23:11:49Z")
Let’s not forget that progressives also widely supported eugenics, China’s one-child per family policy, Communist and socialist revolutions around the world, laws restricting how and where women could work (to prevent them from being ‘exploited’ by men), ‘sweat shop’ laws that seek to further impoverish people in 3rd world nations, fad mental treatments like lobotomies, etc.
The modern inner-city blight is largely a result of progressive projects that sought to build large-scale housing for the poor. This had the perverse effect of isolating poor people, causing children to grow up without good role models, and condemning generations to dependency and despair. The progressive-inspired Community Reinvestment Act helped bring about the real estate crash in 2008.
Today’s progressives appear to hold values contrary to western enlightenment values such as free speech and the right to property. If modern campus progressives are any guide to current progressive thought, they appear to also be for segregating races and cultures through opposition to ‘cultural appropriation’, ‘cultural imperialism’, and the imposition of ‘safe zones’ where only people of certain sexes or ethnicities may enter and where speech they don’t like is tightly controlled.
Progressives today are attempting to embark on a globalist, ‘no borders’ campaign that allows or even encourages the free flow of immigrants into any country, which is an incredibly dangerous idea that could easily lead to civil wars and a breakdown of the modern welfare state. Progressives have no appreciation for emergent order, the power of markets, and the complexity of the human ecosystem. They believe that ‘enlightened’ people can take control of and steer economies and cultures in the direction they think is ‘best’, with no regard for unintended consequences or the wishes of the people they are controlling. The same people who think it would be madness to ‘improve’ an ecosystem by moving different animal species around the world to ‘improve diversity’ also seem to think that you can drop several million humans into a very different culture and it will all work out they way they want.
Another problem with progressives is that they have no limiting principles. They act on whatever the impulse of the day is. There is never a point at which they will say, “Hey, society is good enough. Let’s let things stabilize for a while.” There is always another crusade, another big change that needs to be made. And all their changes seem to be in the direction of less freedom, more centralized control, more collective responsibility and less individual responsibility. They seem to greatly dislike free, open democracies and have a special affinity for socialist dictatorships and horrible monsters like Mao Tse-Tung and Che Guevera. They were fans of Stalin in the 1930’s, supported Mussolini, and even joined in the love for Hitler during the brief tenure of the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact. Modern progressives like Thomas Friedman think it would be just great if America became a one-party state like China.
So I am not sharing the love for progressives. That the Democratic party has been moved from elightenment liberal positions to illiberal progressivism is a terrible thing, and the antics of progressives on campus and elsewhere probably had a lot to do with the rise of Trump.
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