Salon: Is it OK to be liberal again, instead of progressive?

[nsd]

Come out of the closet, liberals. Stop using the fashionable euphemism "progressive" and relaunch the old, tarnished L-word.

By Michael Lind

Nov. 21, 2008 | If the conservative era is over, can liberals come out of their defensive crouch and call themselves liberals again, instead of progressives?

In the last two decades, Democratic politicians, including Barack Obama, have abandoned the term "liberal" for "progressive." The theory was that Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush -- and Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Pat Buchanan -- had succeeded in equating "liberal" in the public mind with weakness on defense, softness on crime, and "redistribution" of Joe the Plumber's hard-earned money to the collective bogey evoked by a former Texas rock band's clever name: Teenage Immigrant Welfare Mothers on Dope.

I've always been uncomfortable with this rather soulless and manipulative exercise in rebranding, for a number of reasons.

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[DJ13]

1. To me progressive is something different from liberal

Progressives tend to favor many of the same pro-capitalist ideals as moderate Republicans, less regulation, and free trade if the business community wants it, tending to be (at best) only somewhat socially liberal.

Liberals tend to discount the pro-capitalist notion that business knows best while favoring the working class over the privileged class, and believes in real social liberalism, from gay rights to heath care being a right instead of an option if someone can afford it.

Not the same in many ways.

The problem isnt the label, its what people mean when they call themselves by that label.

Im afraid this kind of article is designed not to convince people who truly are liberal into admitting it, its designed to water down the meaning of being liberal.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. Funny, I seem to have the same idea except

Your liberal is my progressive. To me, a liberal was already watered down.

Dennis Kucinich is a progressive. Hilary Clinton is a liberal. Bill Clinton is a centrist. PE Obama rests somewhere in between. He's really a pragmatist. Ideological labels don't fit him very well.

[DJ13]

6. To me, a liberal was already watered down.

The different perspective probably results because true liberals were still in government back when I was growing up in the 60's.

My idea of liberal is probably based on what they once stood for, not how they've been mislabeled since the 60's into being something akin to wild eyed, crazed Haight Ashbury druggies promoting socialism.
:)

[Jack Rabbit]

11. My good sir, I'm 57 years old

What appalled was the way "liberals" compromised with Reagan and later Bush the Frat Boy. Far from being wild eyed, crazed druggies advocating socialism, the latter day liberals were wimps who capitulated to neoconservatism.

We're starting to prove the author's point. We can't agree on how to apply the labels, therefore they are meaningless.

[IntravenousDemilo]

2. For me, a progressive is a liberal in a hurry, while a liberal is a progressive who's dawdling. n/m

[New Dawn]

3. No, I am not a liberal.

Liberal outside of the US means right-wing. I do not use US-centric political terms to describe myself.

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. Democratic Economic New Socialist

Is almost sounding mainstream these days.

[TahitiNut]

7. I'm a lifetime independent liberal ...

... not a neo-liberal (corporatist ass-kisser)
... not a meta-liberal (as long as my own butt isn't on the line)
... not a nanny-liberal (outlawing guns, tobacco, alcohol, etc.)
... not a pseudo-liberal (the convenience of identity politics for self-interest)
... not a fraidy-liberal (hiding from the name and avoiding offending anyone)

... but a LIBERAL.

:patriot:

[elleng]

8. Y'all get your 'definitions' together;

Me, I'm Me, Have been; always Will be.

[dorkulon]

9. IMHO 'liberal' is losing its stigma.

That's why they had to dust off 'socialist.'

[IntravenousDemilo]

10. Not that there's anything wrong with being a socialist... n/m

[anonymous171]

12. Keep Progressive, the RW have destroyed the word "liberal"

We shouldn't play by their rules.

[Kansas Wyatt]

14. No, piss on the right wing....

Every Democrat... liberal, progressive, socialist, or whatever any Democrat wants to identify themselves as, should jump all over any right wing slug for speaking ill against them. Dump all their smears back in their laps, and point out all of their colossal failures and who actually stands for what.

[msfiddlestix]

13. Please tell that moron that Progressive is LEFT of Liberal! Sheesh

this idiot is writing for Salon?