Some time ago I started a series on the future of progressive politics in Pennsylvania. In the first post in the series I pointed out that we increasingly face a Republican majority in the General Assembly that is controlled by the radical right wing. In parts two and three of this series, I lambasted Governor Rendell and progressives like myself for, among other things, trying to govern from a non-existent center instead of defending a liberal / progressive vision of a good political community.
What I haven’t done yet is try to suggest how we liberals and progressives should define and defend that vision of a good political community. I have been working on it. And today and in the next few days, I am going to lay out three themes that, I think, can define the provide a thematic sythesis of the goals progressives in Pennsylvania and in Philadelphia.
The first is We’re All In This Together. The second is that We Need A Politics of Hope Not Fear. And the third is that Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Can Do Better.
Rather than talk about these themes and why I think they capture what we want for city and state—which will be unendingly boring—I am going to put them to use in a number of posts to which I have linked above. The first, We’re All In This Together tries to identify the fundamental differences between the commitments of Democrats and Republicans, of Progressive and Reactionaries, and of Liberals and Conservatives. The second explains why We’re All In This Together in Philadelpha, Too. A third, called The Politics of Hope, talks about the kind of change in our political culture we need to act on the recognition that we’re all in this together. I may post one more a little later.
Let me warn you these essays are pretty rough. They don’t attempt to survey all the issues we liberals and progressive could be talking. But I do think they provide a useful framework for addressing most of the key concerns of liberals and progressives today.
This effort won’t end with the following posts. I will be using this framework in the future on this blog and in other political endeavors.
I should say that while I wrote all these posts, the ideas they contain were stimulated and improved by discussions with perhaps fifteen or so of my of political friends and allies. If I try to list them all, I am sure I will unfairly leave somone out. But I should say that the questions, comments, and suggestions of Lance Haver and Hannah Miller have been particularly helpful to me in working these ideas out.