Are the Progressives really our friends?

Ok, this is my second time typing this because I lost the first try. Don’t ask me why. But trust me, there is a reason for this title.

So now who are “progressives”? What do they believe? Well, I was suffering under the assumption that they, like myself, believe some or most of the following:

1. racial equality
2. gay rights
3. Women’s rights including the right to choice
4. That refugees and the DREAMERS should be given a fair shake and definitely treated humanely.
5. that people wanting an education in order to better themselves and contribute to the world wide economy should not be subjected to huge impossible to pay debt.
6. Health Care should be affordable for everybody …with Universal HealthCare as a likely solution

However, there seems to be a group that defines Progressive differently. Not to put too fine a term on it, but apparently it goes something like this. You either support my position, and my candidate for the office of President or any other government job, or you are not one of us…”us” being a progressive.

Now once again, this is coming from the same group that refused to be practical and helped trump get into office in 2016. These are the people that decided that since Bernie was not the democratic candidate, they would either not vote or would vote for a third party candidate. Warning, America, they are doing the same thing in advance of 2020.

How do I know that? Well, remember yesterday when I wrote that Pete Buttigieg was my guy? I did that article because 1. he is gay and I like the idea of someone “like me” being President (remember Blacks and Obama) but 2. because everything I found on him showed that he is progressive by the list above.

As is my normal habit, I wrote the article on the conservative site I do most of them on…no point in broadcasting on that site that there is conflict in the ranks…they would enjoy reading it too much. LOL I then share it here, and with several of my facebook pages.

All of the pages resulted in a few likes and a few comments except for one. In that group, a Progressive one, I got lambasted. Now admittedly most of them just indicated that they didn’t like Mayor Pete and that he was no real progressive. Only one really got abusive.

But, the ones making the assertions that Mayor Pete was/is no progressive, threw out terms like warmonger, totally in bed with Israel, against Universal HealthCare and such. Each time, I would give them the benefit of the doubt, tell them I would look it up and go and google the assertion to see what I found. Each time, I would find nothing or the very opposite of what they claimed.

For example, for “in bed with Israel”, I found him saying that Israel is our friend and as a friend, we should stand up for the Palestinians and do so in a loving way. The theory behind that was that if Israel sees us attacking them, they will likely shore up and be even rougher in a self-defense mode.

He is against free college as suggested by Sanders. Well, he thinks that we need to make efforts to make sure that everybody is able to afford going to college. He is simply not sure that dedicating tax money directly to paying for those tuition bills is going to do anything but use up political capital and build even more resentment. He hopes that another way can be found. He doesn’t say what that might be, but my mind goes to that work-study program that I found so helpful in the 1970s.

The man is young. Perhaps this is not the time for him to be President. He is still progressive, or at least liberal and as a young politician on the rise needs to be encouraged to perhaps grow a bit more on some issues (maybe). I admit that in some way, I found him to subtle. I tend to be like my mother and go for the gut….but that is a good way to build the resistance too.

I finally decided to delete that group from my membership list and move on. It’s just not worth the pain. But I find it interesting that if their favorite candidate (Bernie) gets the nomination, I will vote with them. If anybody else gets the nod, they will likely do what they did in 2016 and either stay home or vote for some obscure third party candidate.

What was it that somebody said about “the perfect being the enemy of the good”?