"Calm Down, Liberal Progressives!" - Are Critics Suffering From Too Much Steak, French Wine, and Quiche?

Peggy Noonan with President Ronald Reagan 

Bill Maher Diagnoses Liberal 'Progressophobia'

Peggy Noonan

June 21, 2021

Bill Maher

I don't share Maher's view presented in Peggy Noonan's piece linked above. That being that ultra liberal progressives are "deeply destructive" as Noonan puts it. They are a nuisance but can only be understood comparatively within the raucous din that is US society.

With the exception of Antifa, liberal progressives are not prone to preemptive violence, gerrymandering, voter suppression, denying that institutional racism exists, and attending rallies bearing Nazi and white supremacist insignia and chanting "you will not replace us". Preserving white privilege and dominance is not on the liberal progressive agenda.

For the most part, ultra liberal progressives can be ignored and out-muscled/out-maneuvered by the Democratic party mainstream. Consider the approaches to governance taken Pelosi and Biden. There is nothing, nothing, on the Right side of the aisle that compares. Look at who the FBI is investigating - white supremacist groups, not the Green New Deal contingent or Black Caucus in Congress. Give me Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over Ted Cruz any, any day! She cares for and acts in the interests of the greatest good for the greatest number. Cruz is an self-serving ideologue who found nothing wrong with the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

As for "progressophobia", surely we can tolerate the liberal progressive's whining that the glass of sociocultural change is half empty. I can abide that far more than I can "Racism? Get over it! We've had the Civil Rights Movement! Stop complaining, we've made progress! Be content with that!"

Maher says "seeing clearly is necessary for actually fixing problems." I agree. But the error of exaggeration liberal progressives make pales in comparison to the anger, hatred, and outrage served up hourly on Fox News and happily consumed by millions of white Americans. We are not blinded by liberal progressive exuberance. It is the disinformation and outright lies of the Right that obscures and delays our way forward in improving US society.

Achieving the Enlightenment project's goals is only furthered by hammering away at obstacles standing in the way. Not laying down the hammer and patting ourselves on the back for the progress we have made. I am willing to grant that more acknowledgement of the progress that has been made may be needed by some on the Left. But in my experience, I have not once heard a liberal progressive leader give a major speech or address the public where s/he did not open by acknowledging that some progress had been made.

Where are the Black Americans asking everyone to calm down, take measure of and show appreciation for the progress we have made? 

I like most of Maher's stuff but I am more and more thinking he is first and foremost a poser, a self-preener who in this case isn't helping the liberal cause. When the lights and cameras are turned off, and Maher's alone with no one laughing at his witticisms and sarcasm, he still ain't Black in America. If/when the shit hits the fan and the US slides into a conservative white-dominated theocracy, we'll see if Maher is still smirking and calling on liberal progressives to reign in their enthusiasm.

I think Noonan, in this piece, suffers from false equivalence:

"Americans are always trying to figure out a way to broaden the number of available lanes to happiness. You can’t do that by mere divisiveness (persons of other colors are bad) or unrelieved bitterness (nothing ever changes)."

The acts of divisiveness and bitterness by the Left are sandbox antics compared to what happened at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA and in DC on January 6, 2021. Give me a horsey, loud progressive over a retrograde conservative any day. The times continue to be a changin'. As humankind adapts and tries new things, a good conservatism is necessary but that lot currently in the US House and Senate and the gaggle in the US population enthralled by Trump ain't it.  

The "transformation and improvement" Noonan refers to in closing her essay never, ever came in the sociocultural evolution of the US without a heaping measure of loud, persistent protest, civil disobedience, and sometimes nasty fights.

Moving the white, Christian US mainstream toward a more pluralistic, inclusive frame of mind has never been a calm, deliberative, incremental, check for progress as we go, process. Changing course on the Titanic did not need a slowed down, deliberative consideration of and appreciation for how nice the cruise had been so far. MLK would not have been nearly as effective in moving the thinking of Americans had it not been for the threats of violence made by Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael and other militants. Republican president Theodore Roosevelt himself said "walk softly but carry a big stick." Most times little change comes about in societies without some stomping and, when necessary, some stick.

Noonan praises "quiet conversions" and "quiet revivals." Hrmph. Me thinks she has become too accustomed to steak, French wine, and quiche. Maher, too.