When I lost my radio show earlier this month, I heard from dozens of people who said they would miss hearing “one of Michigan’s leading progressive voices,” on the air.
That was gratifying — but it also is be worth asking just what that means. Forty years ago, progressive was a word associated with long-vanished political movements; Teddy Roosevelt’s “Bull Moose” Party of 1912; Wisconsin Senator Robert LaFollette’s quixotic presidential run in 1924; Henry Wallace’s far-left Progressive party in 1948.
Then, of course, “progressive” became what “liberals” started calling themselves when liberal became a bad word. Back in 1964, most politicians were proud to call themselves liberal – even some Republicans, like New York’s John Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller.
Then, or course, fashions changed. The morning after Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory in 1980, I heard Senator Carl Levin, shaken by the huge conservative tide, describe himself as a “progressive” rather than a liberal. Now, liberal is almost always used as an insult.
But back to me. I don’t think of myself as a progressive or a liberal or a moderate. I don’t know what a “conservative” is either, since most of those who define themselves that way seem dedicated to tearing down the established social fabric.
What I have figured out, after more than half a century of watching politics and public affairs, is that labels mainly get in the way. We have, and probably need, the two major political parties, as, among other things, organizational structures capable of providing alternative pools of people who can govern, grouped around a set of fairly flexible principles.
But the whole point of government is to get the necessary business of civilization done. I suppose the reason I am thought of as “progressive” is because I think we owe it to ourselves and our futures to pay what it takes to adequately educate our children, fix the roads and other infrastructure so we can attract jobs and new investment, and protect the environment.
To me, that’s not anything but common sense. Naturally, ideology may come into play when we figure out how we are going to pay for it.
But what we can’t do is let that kind of squabbling distract us from what we really need to do to prevent Michigan from falling so far behind we will be essentially unable to compete for the foreseeable future, a peril we may be closer to than most of us know.
Allowing that to happen would be especially insane, given our manufacturing talent and huge agriculture and natural resources, including the Great Lakes and tourism potential.
Incidentally, the media, much of which tends to have the attention span of a six-week-old puppy, often hasn’t been helpful, as in the absolutely moronic debate on social media and on the Detroit Fox TV affiliate over the form-fitting blue dress Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wore when she gave the State of the State.
The governor, who denounced this, probably ought to have ignored it. The bottom line is this: We desperately need to fix the roads, fix the schools, save the water, save the state.
Squabbling over anything else is bullshit. Worse, actually, because it takes our attention away from the very real main job we need to do.
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