Wesley Baker, Jr., a Washington Post columnist, writes about the litmus test that the “Squadroon progressives” — such people as Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — have imposed, to distinguish themselves, the “real” progressives, from the other kind, who in supporting Israel have lost the right to be called progressives. More on the Squadroons’ sole criterion for deciding who is and who is not a “progressive” can be found here: “Cori Bush’s defeat is a big, disappointing loss for progressives,” by Perry Bacon Jr., Washington Post, August 7, 2024:
Many progressives were pushing for Walz instead of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has taken more conservative stands on many issues and been very critical of campus protests of Israel’s military actions in Gaza.It’s not clear exactly why Harris chose Walz over Shapiro. … But she also likely wanted to avoid irritating the party’s left wing by picking Shapiro. So although the left didn’t get one of its champions on the ticket, it exercised something of a veto. That’s progressive power….
Shapiro had been a strong candidate for the position. He’s been a very popular governor, re-elected with 61% of the vote, in the important swing state of Pennsylvania, that has 19 electoral votes and that has been carried by every successful Democratic presidential candidate for the last several decades. But he had posted online his strong support for the IDF’s campaign against the terror group Hamas, and that was enough for the “Squadroons” to fight against his possible selection as vice president. And they won. Harris decided at the last minute to choose the allegedly homespun small-town high school teacher and coach, Tim Walz, on the basis of one desideratum: that choice placated the left wing of her party, that didn’t want her vice president to be so vocal in his support for the Jewish state. That put the kibosh on the candidacies of both Governor Shapiro and of another vice-presidential possibility, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona.
George Latimer calls himself a progressive, using the word repeatedly on his website. So does Wesley Bell. They both hold similar positions to their opponents on nearly every issue important to the Left….
“Nearly every issue,“ that is, except Israel, where the Squadroon “progressives” show their animus on every occasion, while both Latimer and Bell support the Jewish state, now fighting its fourth war for survival.
Latimer’s website repeatedly refers to him as a “progressive.” And the website of Wesley Bell, who just defeated squadron Cori Bush in the Democratic primary, similarly mentions his “progressive” reforms and “progressive” agenda. They characterize themselves as “progressives” and are not about to cede that word for its exclusive use by the anti-Israel Squadroons and their willing collaborators.
John Fetterman, Richie Torres, and Mondaire Jones are as “progressive” as they come. But unlike the squadroons — Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, André Carson and the soon-to-be-gone from Congress Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush — they are not full of animus toward the Jewish state; in fact, they quite admire it. That’s what prevents them from being considered as “progressives” by the Squadroons. The Tlaibs and the Omars won’t stand for it. Nor will the tens of thousands of nitwits, on and off campuses, now singing the praises of Hamas and denouncing Israel’s nonexistent “genocide” as they call for a 23rd Arab state to be created “from the river to the sea.”
The real progressives, let it be repeated, do not hate Israel. The usurpers of the name, these malign squadroons, should not be allowed to appropriate for themselves the word “progressive,” which has a noble lineage, beginning from the time of Ida Tarbell and the muckrakers, and the presidential campaigns of Robert La Follette and Teddy Roosevelt (who founded the Progressive Party in 1912). Let’s stop calling Omar and Tlaib “progressives.” They are reactionaries, upholders of the “most retrograde force” in the world today, as Winston Churchill wrote in The River War, in his description of Islam. There is nothing “progressive” about Islam or about any of its Congressional supporters.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
“Progressive” is just another euphemism for “socialist”, if not downright “communist”. Also, the so-called “moderate” Democrats are mostly bait-‘n’-switch Dems, who promise one thing to their constituents, who are Right-of-Center and therefore normally suspicious of their party, but vote w/ the herd once elected. Hard pass!
The Democrat Party of John Kennedy, Pat Moynihan and Scoop Jackson is dead. What we have today is the party of Obama, Ilhan & Rashida
If this country has to have only a two party system (unlike the 79 “genders” that we gave the world), then let the Libertarians come in, and the Republicans, the way they are today, be the “leftist” party in the group. Let the Democrats go the way of Israel’s Labour Party
James Lincoln says
࿗Infidel࿘ says,
“Progressive” is just another euphemism for “socialist”, if not downright “communist”.
Yes.
And like the word “antifa”, the true meaning is 180° off…
Bret says
Progressives, Democrats, leftists. They are the same. Just because some of them choose to hate the Jews and some of them have Jewish ancestry means nothing. Except for this they are in lock step with each other. The writer must be a progressive as the left is adept at changing vocabulary. As in , abortion is health care.
Rick Gordon says
If one reads/listens to national media news one can only conclude that ‘progressives’ hate America.