One is Michael Lyras, a 44-year-old American, who lives in Volusia County, near Orlando, in central Florida. Lyras studied addiction counseling in college but is currently disabled and receiving food stamps. He voted for Trump “all three times” but says he is upset with the way things are going: “I regret my last vote enormously,” he says.
“It was necessary to make changes, but not in this way, sacrificing our civil rights and liberties that are enshrined in our Constitution,” Lyras adds. “He [Trump] is turning this into a police state and he’s acting like an authoritarian. I didn’t vote for any of this”
That’s the thing. America’s majority “progressive” cohort are still a little right of centre by the standard of most other developed societies. But for many conservatives, I think “progressive” is synonymous with “the far-left” in their minds, when really it’s more just playing catch up with the world or trying to restore intended concepts of the US Constitution.
Health, income protection, economic regulation, appropriately funded education, crisis/disaster/wellbeing support, etc. These are your “basics” by default. Common rights and protections for individuals. But if your country doesn’t have them, it would be seen as progress attaining them in the same way roads, voting, and sanitation were progress. It’s be foolish to stop evolving a society under the idea that there’s no benefit to new and proven advancements in society and culture. Your average American progressive just wants to roll that update in and get some nice new features and quality of living. When a conservative says “no!” they’re not realising they’re saying “yes” to continuing in their modern dark ages.
You’re not actually disagreeing with me
We’re in a really, really bad spot. We’re regressing month over month
Progressives, to us, means shit like feeding the hungry in one of the largest bread baskets of the world. That is a progressive position for us. Some would call it a radical position