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Mr. Obama plans to boost federal spending 25 percent while nearly tripling the national debt over 10 years. Americans know that this kind of spending will have economic consequences, including new taxes being imposed by the new progressives.
Here's a more controversial idea: In general, Democrats and progressives ought to allow Trump considerable room to choose his own employees - far more room than Republicans allowed during the Obama administration. Tit-for-tat is a dangerous game.
Yes, we believe in globalization and trade, but we also believe in you being able to benefit from that more. For too long, we progressives have seemed like part of the system. We need to start thinking about whether or not it's delivering for us now.
I think, with Obama and the progressives, you've seen a massive expansion of big government, and it's all based on a moral premise. The moral premise is that wealth is theft. And I don't just mean the wealth of America, I mean, your wealth, my wealth.
If progressives were interested in mitigating inequality, they would support the dynamism of free markets to allow the merit of ideas, products and services to win the day rather than stifle companies and pick winners in the name of imagined 'progress.'
Before progressives were apocalyptic about climate change they were apocalyptic about nuclear energy. Then, after the Cold War ended, and the threat of nuclear war declined radically, they found a new vehicle for their secular apocalypse in the form of climate change.
Many progressives understand Scalia, and other conservative judges, in crassly political terms - as opponents of affirmative action, abortion, gun control, and campaign finance legislation. But what Scalia cared most about was clear, predictable rules, laid down in advance.
I think if progressives stay at this, continue at the grassroots level to make the case that all Americans should have choice, all Americans ought to be able to hold insurance companies accountable, I think we will have 60 votes in the United States Senate for a strong bill.
Conservatives believe that international institutions such as the United Nations are anti-American and anti-Israeli cabals. Progressives do not like the economic medicine that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank force down the throats of developing countries.
Once the cry and the cause of a generation of progressives to make America safer, fairer and cleaner, 'regulation' is now a dirty word in our politics. Even Democrats are quick to talk about cutting regulations; Republicans hate them with - how to put it? - evangelical fervor.
You will notice that the Occupy Wall Street crowds - and the progressives who support them - focus on bringing the wealthy down to earth rather than lifting the 99 percent. They have a nearly religious belief that too much wealth is fundamentally immoral and unhealthy for society.
But I think it's very key that there's a plan for Haiti. And we have to begin to - as progressives and people who are concerned about Haiti and have been concerned about Haiti, we have to begin to build some sort of consensus, a movement around the Haiti that the Haitians envision.
The arrogance of liberal progressives is that they're just a lot smarter and better angels than the Stalins and the Chavezes and the Castros of the world, and if we give them all the control, and they control your life, they're going to do a great job of it. Well, it just isn't true.
Abstract sympathy with the working class as an economic entity is easy, but the feeling can vanish on contact with actual members of the group, who often arrive with disturbing beliefs and powerful resentments - who might not sound or look like people urban progressives want to know.
For many progressives, 2016 will go down as a year of electoral shocks and profound disappointment. In the U.S., France and many other parts of Europe, the right enters 2017 with newfound confidence while the left recoils in fear of the future, unsure how to get back on the front foot.
Bottom 10 Percent progressives are not enthusiastic about concentrations of wealth. But that's not what keeps them up at night. Their focus is on deprivation and lack of opportunity. They're motivated by empathy for people who are suffering, rather than outrage over unjustified wealth.
I think the rise of progressives is the biggest storyline there is, whether it's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Kara Eastman or Randy Bryce, Richard Ojeda - real populist progressives that are willing to actually fight for the progressive message rather than the lukewarm establishment Democrats.
I think progressives understand that we are Americans at the same time as we are global citizens. We are interested first and foremost in creating peace and prosperity here at home, but we aren't blind to the fact that injustice anywhere in the world is meaningful, important, and worth thinking about.
Trump gives progressives a way to channel whatever guilt they might have - whether from preventing homebuilding, benefitting from unfair taxes and pensions, or depriving black and Latino students the teacher quality and school funding they need - into a sanctimonious tribal rage against Republican racism.
When I walk around my neighborhood, the grocery store, or the farmers market, I don't see Democrats or Republicans, Progressives or Conservatives. I see my brothers and sisters - living, breathing human beings with diverse and complicated stories, views, and desires that can't be packaged neatly in a box.
Upbeat is for people who want to feel good about their cause: the reformers, the progressives, the revolutionaries, the utopians, the collectivists, and the rest of the altruistic scum of the earth. Why do these people want to feel good? They want to feel good in order to convince themselves that they are good.
As much as progressives hate the Electoral College - and we can argue its flaws all day long - in 2020, the Electoral College is the only game in town. There's not going to be some miracle where it's not the rule book. The winner of the Electoral College is president. Doesn't matter how many popular votes you get.
The fact is that the Democratic Party in modern times has always had a conservative wing, one frequently as strong or stronger than its liberal wing, and as such, when progressives speak of the party as a vehicle that naturally belongs to them, as if by right - until conservatives stole it from them - they weaken progressivism.
People have long assumed that violence is necessary for political change. Rulers never cede power voluntarily, the argument goes, so progressives have no choice but to contemplate the use of force to bring about a better world, mindful of the trade-off between a small amount of violence now and acceptance of an unjust status quo indefinitely.