Why do some Tea Party people call democrats, progressives?

I think that the word progressive is used in naming a tax… like a progressive taxation. Democrats are for higher taxes on the rich.

The lefter side of the political spectrum call themselves Progressives. In San Francisco, which is on the more liberal side of the Democrats, the more left is called progressive, and takes pride in that appellation.

Tea Partiers use it as a term of denigration and also to paint all Democrats with the ultra liberal label. But in reality, the most progressive people find the Democrats too bound to corporate special interests.

It is because they have no knowledge of the meaning of the word’s significance in the history of their country. You would think they might get a clue from the fact that it is the preferred label of Democrats fleeing the taint conservatives have smeared on the word “liberal”.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/hillary-clinton-n-h-time-nyc-launch-article-1.2259113
Same reason Hillary Clinton calls herself a progressive.

I call myself a progressive because I believe in moving forward instead of backwards.

@johnpowell

I have always been interested in the notion that people have that they are moving “forward” or “backward”.

How do you know that time and events are moving in a spatial direction?

How do you know that you are not going down? Or up? Or turning in a circle?

In the developed world people are generally living longer, have more access to labor saving devices and are more wealthy than they ever have been, whether or not they have been moving “forward” or “backward” or turning in a circle.

Which direction is forward? Is it sort of like North?

Those of us on the left used to call ourselves liberal, but liberal became a dirty word. It sounds like you are not too fussy about maintaining any standards. Progressive has pretty much usurped liberal. How can you be against progress? Conservatives will find it somewhat more difficult to make progressive into a dirty word.

It is fascinating to watch the verbal games at play. It is too easy to make pro-abortion sound really bad, so we now say we are pro-choice. How can you be against choice? This really rankles those who are anti-abortion, excuse me, pro-life. So it has become life vs choice. How is one to decide?

Another interesting verbal sparring match has to do with the idea of discrimination. In order to overcome the systemic discrimination against minorities, the left developed quotas to try to give opportunities to the oppressed. Those on the right then came up with the clever term reverse discrimination. You are not helping minorities; you are discriminating against the majority, or something like that. The left countered by talking about diversity. We are not reverse discriminating. We are providing opportunities for the majority to enrich their insular lives by coming into contact with people from different backgrounds.

And on and on.

Progression is change. Few individuals are comfortable with the lack of predictability that change produces. Many prefer the security that they feel a static unchanging reality would provide. This is one reason that they embrace religious beliefs that have remained relatively consistent for centuries and reject information that science presents that refute them. The experiences of childhood define what one expects security to be like, including the social order of their youth.

The ‘Tea Party’ in many ways is like Luddites who were not regressive but rightly feared the loss of employment that mechanization and independence was causing. By in large, Republicans offer the promise of conserving a way of life, while Democrats claim that through change well-being will improve. However, change is not always progress.

Opps! “The ‘Tea Party’ in many ways is like Luddites who were not regressive but rightly feared the loss of employment that mechanization and independence was causing.” Should have been “The ‘Tea Party’ in many ways is like Luddites who were not regressive but rightly feared the loss of employment and independence that mechanization was causing.”

The term “Progressive” just doesn’t make sense to me at all.

@dxs, the denigration of the word ‘liberal’ by the conservative political movement (who has also demonized Socialism) led to its substitution with the term Progressive. This is unfortunate. The use of the term ‘progressive’ falsely suggests that only the left pursues progress while the right is regressive. Liberals should not attempt to diminish the wrath of the right by playing semantics (as President Clinton did with his “what is is” dodge) to curry voters favor. It is time that Democrats get a backbone.

@Bill1939 , I think progressive is a good term for the opposite of conservative. Conservative derives from the word conserve and emphasizes holding onto the status quo. Conservative would also include those who are regressive and feel that the better times of the past have already been violated. Progressive derives from progress and emphasizes making continuous improvements.

But my question is why do the opposition party/ies call the left, progressives which can’t be a bad word. Progress is a good thing. Why would someone call a rival “the awesome one”, just because he/she does?

Maybe they are trying to make it seem as if the Progressives are a mockery of the term they use to describe themselves in the way that the Moral Majority was not particularly moral and quite fortunately was not in the majority.

@LostInParadise I don’t sense that they are being mockery-ish though.

….I don’t mean that liberals are awesome or are not, it’s just an example.

@josie :: By moving forward I mean that the coloreds can share our white only bubblers and woman can vote.

Instead of the Republican longing for the 50’s where you could beat your wife but she was barefoot and pregnant and not able to run as fast as you.