Why I Am Not a Progressive

LiberalOasis.com Executive Editor Bill Scher's contribution to Proud To Be Liberal talks about why liberals are not progressives, and shouldn't be.

For better or for worse, "liberal" and "conservative" are part of the American political lexicon, and the mainstream media reflexively uses those terms to define our ideological spectrum. Political reporters regularly refer to seemingly large groups of "liberal" Democratic senators even though not a single senator openly defines himself or herself that way, not to mention most House members and prominent activists.

But despite the pounding "liberal" has taken from Republicans, the solution is not to run further away from the word. That only makes the problem worse.

As much as we may dislike labels, we can't dismiss them. We can sniff at the simplistic nature of our political discourse, but every politician needs to sum up his or her general approach to government in some basic way. That's how voters get a sense of what they're voting for. Until we can scrub off the stigma attached to the word "liberal," Americans won't be comfortable with the direction in which Democrats would take the country.

Unfortunately, there's no single catch phrase, no one book, no snappy ad, that's going to quickly turn things around. It will take years and require long-term thinking and a whole lot of patience and tenacity.

However, political leaders tend not to think past the next election. So don't expect Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean or any of the prospective presidential candidates in 2008 to take the lead in revitalizing "liberal." Like many things in the decentralized Democratic Party, change will have to come from the grassroots on up.

By taking to the airwaves, the letters page and the blogs, we can take the lead in re-associating "liberal" with the values and beliefs that speak to Americans' struggles and desires in an insecure economy and a destabilized world: responsive government, sound management, shared responsibility, personal freedom and the spread of liberty and prosperity, not destruction and hypocrisy, across the globe.

Follow Bill Scher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/billscher