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Our progressive moment may have arrived [1]

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Date: 2025-06-17

“Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase of pain.” -George Orwell, Nineteen-eighty Four

There has been a view—I wouldn’t call it prevailing but it’s sizable—that a major offender of our political apocalypse is the rise of Clintonesque centrism in the Democratic party. If only the Clintons, Schumers, and Pelosis of the world had been more progressive from the outset, we wouldn’t be in this mess. If you hold that view, I get your frustration, but please consider:

The presidential map from 1980:

The presidential map from 1984:

The presidential map from 1988:

There was a twenty-four year span from 1968-1992 in which there was only one Democratic president, and he only lasted one term. The 1988 election was especially devastating, and politicians who were around back then continue to suffer from the trauma of that beating.

When we nominated Clinton/Gore in 1992 as a “new kind” of moderate Democrat, it was because we were tired of getting our asses kicked. Sure, we would have loved to put Noam Chomsky’s hand on the bible, or whatever book he would have used, but Clinton was the best we could manage. This country was blood red from coast to coast, and I promise you, our losses were not due to a lack of progressive policies. Just ask Walter Mondale.

So we got a Democratic president, but the country continued a rightward trend. We lost Democratic governors, we lost congress big time, we saw the rise of right wing extremist terrorism, and by the end of the 90s, America was no longer willing to let stupidity be a barrier for a rightwing presidency. The massive failures of W. Bush gave the country an ephemeral pang of doubt about the rightwing agenda. Obama said he wanted his presidency to be a transformative American moment, a new direction for our nation, but having a black president only emboldened the Right’s darkest side, and they grew stronger.

This is a story, anyway. There are competing stories. Republicans have only won the popular vote twice since 1988, and the few presidential victories they’ve accomplished were only due to ballot design flaws and voter suppression. When you look at people’s views from a host of issues, ranging from abortion rights to gay marriage, they have been trending strongly to the left. So do we live in a fundamentally rightwing nation, or is America at its heart truly progressive? Or are we as evenly divided as many claim?

It’s hard to make sense of this country, especially in 2025, but it’s undeniable that the Right has been a beastly force, often enjoying widespread support with seemingly low effort. They have for decades been pushing America down their crumbling, potholed road, and whether it’s due to knavery or popularity, they have succeeded.

Now Republicans have shown America the truth of their vision. Cruelty, ignorance, and failure. Decimating cancer research to give billionaires a bigger tax break. Pollution and uninspected food. No support for students with disabilities. Senseless trade wars with no regard to economic impacts. Grabbing innocent, law abiding people off the streets and sending them to foreign gulags without due process. In short, the Right means pain—a pain that will be felt. Trump is the Republican Moses and he’s led us all straight into the pits of hell.

There has never been a better moment for Democrats to show America what it means to be progressive.

We are the party that upholds the ideals of the United States as a human rights enterprise, and fulfilling those ideals results in a better life for us all. We have failed those ideals again and again since their very inception, but the failures of people are not the failures of the principles.

The Declaration of Independence is spiritual. The concept of a “self-evident truth” is born from existentialism, the idea that there exists some deeper truth within all people that can only be divined through introspection, namely, the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. This essential idea is the heart of our democracy, and this heart beats in everyone across the planet. Any effort to suppress this truth is the nature of oppression. Contrary to what John Yoo might tell you, justice isn’t an intellectual legal construct that can be transformed with creative copyediting. Justice is visceral. When we experience hunger, poverty, censorship, neglect, and violence, we know that it is wrong, and when these conditions are forced on us, we know that we are being wronged.

We should study the past, but we needn’t live in it. This is not 1980, 1984, or 1988. This moment is unlike any other that’s come before, and if we continue to press the ideals of a liberal democracy, it can be our moment. Perhaps not since the founding of our country has the progressive vision been more salient, resonant, and necessary.

We might not yet know the right political strategy, but we know what is right. And we must continue to fight for it, no matter the outlook for success.

Like many of us on this site, my life, which is otherwise at the moment good, has been darkened by the pall of this vile administration, and my daily existence has been hobbled by a pervasive feeling of dread and desolation. To put it another way, I’m losing my mind. At great risk to my ego, I’m inviting people to participate in my mental unraveling and launching a video series called “Losing Your Mind with Zack.” Like many people, I wish I could do more. But one thing I can do is speak out, regardless of who is listening.

It’s a way to keep myself occupied while the world crumbles, anyway.

x YouTube Video

Follow me on Threads and/or BlueSky.

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