Do most people perceive progressives as corrupt?

[Hardkill]

Progressives are by no means perfect, but in truth they are certainly much less corrupt than the vast majority of individuals out there in the world, politically and socially. I get the idea that most people don't vote for progressive candidates because most people's level of consciousness is not as advanced as that of the progressives. 

However, we know that for many decades most people have become increasingly upset with the constant corruption that has gone on in politics, establishment, government. So, why haven't the good majority of the people tried having progressives as their political leaders if they have already realized at this point how corrupt and disappointing all of the Republican and establishment Democratic politicians have always been?

Is it because most people fear that progressives like Sanders or AOC themselves might even be more corrupt than all of the Republican and establishment Democratic politicians?

Edited May 6, 2022 by Hardkill

[Epikur]

10 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

Progressives are by no means perfect, but in truth they are certainly much less corrupt than the vast majority of individuals out there in the world, politically and socially. I get the idea that most people don't vote for progressive candidates because most people's level of consciousness is not as advanced as that of the progressives. 

However, we know that for many decades most people have become increasingly upset with the constant corruption that has gone on in politics, establishment, government. So, why haven't the good majority of the people haven't yet tried having progressives as their political leaders if they have already realized at this point how corrupt and disappointing all of the Republican and establishment Democratic politicians have always been?

Is it because most people fear that progressives like Sanders or AOC themselves might even be more corrupt than all of the all of the Republican and establishment Democratic politicians?

I guess it is because people do not believe that making the weak strong works. So basically the ideology is perceived as wrong.

[Hardkill]

42 minutes ago, Epikur said:

I guess it is because people do not believe that making the weak strong works. So basically the ideology is perceived as wrong.

But that's not the question I am asking. 

What I am asking is why aren't most people these days a lot more interested in electing progressives if most people have already gotten so fed up with the long history of political corruption of both Republicans and establishment Democrats in power?

Is that because most people may actually believe that progressives are the most corrupt people?

Edited May 5, 2022 by Hardkill

[SeaMonster]

Well, people don't want radical social engineering.  This has nothing to do with "level of consciousness," (unless you believe the commies had higher consciousness or something.)  It's more like a bunch of ideologues who aren't really smarter or wiser than anyone, but believe a society should be organized a certain way.  So even if a person is clean, if he wants policies most people find oppressive or intrusive, economically and socially, that's not going to meet with approval.

[DocWatts]

People tend to interpret the motivations of others though thier own moral and ethical framework, and how much this distorts one's views of others is directly correlated to how developed a person's perspective taking framework is.

For someone who's at a stage of development where thier circle of concern doesn't expand far beyond thier immediate social circle or ethnic group, of course they interpret Progressive politics as a front to privledge one's own group (blacks, gays, the poor, etc) at the expense of others.

The reason they end up thinking this way is because that's exactly what they would do. 

Progressives understand there are differing motivations between these two camps, while conservatives are more likely to project their own motivations on to thier opponents.

Of course both camps are far from perfect in this regard, just that conservatives tend to be far worse at it than liberals or progressives.

Edited May 5, 2022 by DocWatts

[thisintegrated]

Not corrupt, just "naiive".

[Hardkill]

27 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

People tend to interpret the motivations of others though thier own moral and ethical framework, and how much this distorts one's views of others is directly correlated to how developed a person's perspective taking framework is.

For someone who's at a stage of development where thier circle of concern doesn't expand far beyond thier immediate social circle or ethnic group, of course they interpret Progressive politics as a front to privledge one's own group (blacks, gays, the poor, etc) at the expense of others.

The reason they end up thinking this way is because that's exactly what they would do. 

Progressives understand there are differing motivations between these two camps, while conservatives are more likely to project their own motivations on to thier opponents.

Of course both camps are far from perfect in this regard, just that conservatives tend to be far worse at it than liberals or progressives.

 

16 minutes ago, thisintegrated said:

Not corrupt, just "naiive".

So, could one say that most people are afraid that a progressive platform may foolishly lead to much greater corruption in their society than the amount of corruption led by either the Republican leadership or the establishment Democratic leadership?

Edited May 5, 2022 by Hardkill

[DocWatts]

19 minutes ago, thisintegrated said:

Not corrupt, just "naiive".

I would argue that's more true for people with a more developed perspective taking framework, but on much of the Right there's also a deep seated hostility and suspicion of the motives of people professing egalitarian Values.

If your own moral framework conceives of society as a zero sum dominance hierarchy of groups fighting other groups, it makes sense that you would be suspicious of someone claiming to want to dismantle or flatten power hierarchies. In that person's mind, what an egalitarian is really trying to do is, far from make everyone equal, is to place thier own group at the top of the hierarchy by knocking everyone down a peg.

Edited May 5, 2022 by DocWatts

[thisintegrated]

1 minute ago, Hardkill said:

So, could one say that most people are afraid that a progressive platform may foolishly cause greater corruption of society?

I don't think there's any connection between "progressiveness" and "corruption".  They're unrelated.  Anyone can be greedy.

[Hardkill]

5 minutes ago, thisintegrated said:

I don't think there's any connection between "progressiveness" and "corruption".  They're unrelated.  Anyone can be greedy.

No, in truth, of course not. In fact, one could argue that progressivism is inversely proportional to corruption.

But I am wondering if the vast majority of the people out there, who are not progressives, wrongly fear that what the progressives are trying to push for will lead to more corruption in their society. For example, do most Americans mistakenly believe that something like Medicare for All will create more corruption in their nation?

Edited May 5, 2022 by Hardkill

[thisintegrated]

1 minute ago, Hardkill said:

No, in truth, of course not. In fact, one could argue that progressivism is inversely proportional to corruption.

But I am wondering if the vast majority of the people out there, who are not progressives, wrongly fear that what the progressives are trying to push for will lead to more corruption in their society. For example, do most people mistakenly believe that something like Medicare for All will create more corruption in their nation?

No.  I've never seen anything to indicate that the masses think this way.

An example of "progressiveness" would be using psychedelics to self-medicate depression.  The opposite would be paying big pharma for pills.  Does anyone think that advocating for the use of psychedelics is the more greedy/corrupt choice here?  Of course not.  

[DocWatts]

14 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

 

So, could one say that most people are afraid that a progressive platform may foolishly lead to much greater corruption in their society than the amount of corruption led by either the Republican leadership or the establishment Democratic leadership?

I think it's more accurate to say that more Liberal or Centrist minded folks are more likely to think of Progressives as generally well meaning but naiive (which interestingly enough is a common criticism against Liberals from Progressives). 

And also that Progressives can be unreasonable in their demands, which is a fair criticism.

[Hardkill]

7 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

I think it's more accurate to say that more Liberal or Centrist minded folks are more likely to think of Progressives as generally well meaning but naiive (which interestingly enough is a common criticism against Liberals from Progressives). 

And also that Progressives can be unreasonable in their demands, which is a fair criticism.

You meant more conservative or centrist minded folks, right?

Yeah, I get what you're saying, but why don't they care more about eliminating the decades long corruption of the Republican and establishment Democratic political leaders if most people are clearly getting totally sick and tired of these same old type of politicians leading our country?

Edited May 6, 2022 by Hardkill

[DocWatts]

14 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

You meant more conservative or centrist minded folks, right?

Yeah, I get what you're saying, but why don''t they care more about eliminating the decades long corruption of the Republican and establishment Democratic political leaders?

No, I meant liberals; while there's some overlap between the two, Liberalism and Progressivism are distinct ideological poles.

Think of the difference between Barrack Obama and Bernie Sanders as a good demonstration of this, then compare and contrast their differing perspectives on an issue like healthcare (a more regulated private market vs getting rid of private insurance in favor of Universal Health Care).

They're both lumped together in the Democratic Party because of the peculiarities of the American two party system, but they're distinct enough that in a parliamentary system they would probably be different political parties.

Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to have nothing but disdain for Progressives, whom they view as extremists.

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by DocWatts

[Hardkill]

7 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

No, I meant liberals; while there's some overlap between the two, Liberalism and Progressivism are distinct ideological poles.

Think of the difference between Barrack Obama and Bernie Sanders as a good demonstration of this, then compare and contrast their differing perspectives on an issue like healthcare (a more regulated private market vs getting rid of private insurance in favor of Universal Health Care).

They're both lumped together in the Democratic Party because of the peculiarities of the American two party system, but they're distinct enough that in a parliamentary system they would probably be different political parties.

Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to have nothing but disdain for Progressives, whom they view as extremists.

 

Oh, okay. I see your point.

So, you don't think that most people are not really getting that sick and tired of either corrupt Conservatives, corrupt Centrists, or even somewhat corrupt Liberals running the country?

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Hardkill

[DocWatts]

22 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

Oh, okay. I see your point.

So, you don't think that most people are not really getting that sick and tired of either corrupt Conservatives, corrupt Centrists, or even somewhat corrupt Liberals running the country?

I think that the bulk of the political alienation that you're alluding to stems specifically from the failures of neoliberalism, which emerged as the predominant political paradigm from the 1980s onward.

Neoliberalism is the paradigm that emerged out of the Democratic party largely abandoning the interests of the working class in order to more successfully compete with the GOP after 12 years of Reagan/Bush, in a context where a legalized form of bribery (ie lobbying) has a huge impact on who wins elections.

The result of which is that both political party's interests became more concerned with advancing the interests of Capitalism at the expense of the living standards of ordinary people (with the Democrats and Republicans being the 'soft' and 'hard' versions of this, respectively).

No coincidence that this period inward coincided with a decline in living standards for ordinary Americans, and a feeling that politics is theatre without substantial impact on a person's day to day lives.

Trump was able to cynically exploit the deep seated resentment against this paradigm (along with a burgeoning white nationalist movement) to propel himself to the White House in 2016, while Hilary Clinton was (correctly) identified as a poster child for neoliberalism.

Edited May 6, 2022 by DocWatts

[Hardkill]

25 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

I think that the bulk of the political alienation that you're alluding to stems specifically from the failures of neoliberalism, which emerged as the predominant political paradigm from the 1980s onward.

Neoliberalism is the paradigm that emerged out of the Democratic party largely abandoning the interests of the working class in order to more successfully compete with the GOP after 12 years of Reagan/Bush, in a context where a legalized form of bribery (ie lobbying) has a huge impact on who wins elections.

The result of which is that both political party's interests became more concerned with advancing the interests of Capitalism at the expense of the living standards of ordinary people (with the Democrats and Republicans being the 'soft' and 'hard' versions of this, respectively).

No coincidence that this period inward coincided with a decline in living standards for ordinary Americans, and a feeling that politics is theatre without substantial impact on a person's day to day lives.

Trump was able to cynically exploit the deep seated resentment against this paradigm (along with a burgeoning white nationalist movement) to propel himself to the White House in 2016, while Hilary Clinton was (correctly) identified as a poster child for neoliberalism.

I understand that, but Trump brought political to a whole new level with his own kind of neoliberalism and conservatism during his presidency. Since Biden became presidency he has brought back some of the corruption coming from the neoliberal democratic platform.

Given how much the people have already suffered greatly for several decades from the massive amounts of political and economic corruption in our country produced from both neoliberalism and conservatism, why aren't the vast majority of people in our society desperately wanting to have a progressive POTUS, a Congress dominated by progressives, who would undoubtedly fundamentally reduce the great amount of economic and political corruption that has already existed for far too long?

Edited May 6, 2022 by Hardkill

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Is it because most people fear that progressives like Sanders or AOC themselves might even be more corrupt than all of the all of the Republican and establishment Democratic politicians?

No, it's because people are too ignorant to understand the sources of corruption.

MAGA people think that corruptions comes from Hollywood, pedophiles, socialists, and globalist Jews.

Understanding the true source of corruption requires wisdom and intelligence. The whole point is that corruption obscures its own source.

When you make a deal with the devil, you think the devil is the good guy.

[AsEyeAm]

@Hardkill Essentially you are correct. AOC and Bernie will appear far more corrupted to the point of pure evil to somebody on the far right. To more moderate people, they might appear to have good ideals that people would no doubt want to have actualized in society, but appear to be outright delusional in how to go about creating the changes. Corrupted by their own "wishful thinking" to a moderate rather then "evil" to someone on the far right. 

At the same time you can't make changes to a corrupt system without playing the systems corrupted game. Are progressives corrupt enough to "get it done" I could see some people framing that as the crux of the issue also ?

[Hardkill]

11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No, it's because people are too ignorant to understand the sources of corruption.

MAGA people think that corruptions comes from Hollywood, pedophiles, socialists, and globalist Jews.

Understanding the true source of corruption requires wisdom and intelligence. The whole point is that corruption obscures its own source.

When you make a deal with the devil, you think the devil is the good guy.

Ah, so most people, especially the MAGA people stupidly believe that all liberals and progressives are the bad guys and that the left-wing ideology is the ultimate source of corruption?

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Hardkill