During last Monday’s Democratic Presidential debate, Senator Hillary Clinton indicated that she preferred to be called “progressive” rather than “liberal.” The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that is probably a good move--Americans are more receptive to the term progressive.Just 20% said they consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically liberal while 39% would view that description negatively. However, 35% would consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically progressive. Just 18% react negatively to that term. Those figures reflect a huge swing, from a net negative of nineteen points to a net positive of 17 points.
If we were lefties here at HazZzMat, we'd have to laugh. As anyone who reads the history books is well aware, "progressive" is the sneaky word that Marxists use to disguise their politics, better to hide their true intentions from the electorate. "Progressive," in short, is pretty much a synonym for "socialist." Which, of course, is exactly what Hillary is.
So it's no surprise that Hillary prefers to see herself described as a "progressive." A hard leftist, she knows full well that the lefty definition of "progressive" describes her politics perfectly. On the other hand, she also knows that the "progressive" label conceals her politics from a large chunk of the electorate which, like the idiots cited above, don't really have a clue as to what the code word "progressive" connotes.
How about the flip side of the equation?
On the other side of the ideological spectrum, being called politically conservative is considered a positive description by 32% and negative by 20%. It’s much better for a candidate to be described as being like Ronald Reagan—44% consider that a positive description and 25% negative. That swing is meaningful, but not as dramatic as the difference between liberal and progressive. Being called conservative generates a net 12 point positive response that jumps to 19 points when someone is said to be like Reagan.
What this tells us is that the left has successfully concealed its Marxist intentions by deploying its dishonest term "progressive" in such a way that it becomes more useful than "liberal" to describe their very-left political agenda while appearing to be "moderate." (After all, in the original sense of the word, how many of us, even on the conservative side of the aisle, would resist being called "progressive," which USED TO MEAN forward-looking and creative?)
Meanwhile, the left has also effectively demonized "conservative," as indicated above. On the other hand, if Republican politics are referred to as "Reaganite," the approval numbers suddenly improve, although the difference is not as "dramatic" as the "liberal" vs. "progressive" swing.
No doubt, the reason for this phenomenon is the fact that the left's endless restructuring of meaning has taken its toll, manipulating people who are in fact "moderate" or "centrist" into feeling more comfortable with describing themselves as "progressive." They apparently think that by avoiding the increasingly opprobrious term "liberal" and using "progressive" to describe their politics, they can now bask in the "forward thinking" connotation that used to give meaning to the term. Meanwhile, they are now apparently nearly oblivious to the use of the term "progressive" in Marxist language encoding.
There could be a lesson here. Maybe it's time for Repubs to reposition themselves as "Reaganites" as opposed to "conservatives." That way, they can indulge in the best of conservative policies and practices while cloaking themselves in the good vibes left behind by Ronald Reagan, the gold standard of conservative politics everywhere.
Hey, if the left can pull this off, so can we. And not a moment too soon. 2008 looms increasingly large. If the right can get its hands back around our culture the way Reagan did, disallowing field advantage to the, er, progressives, Repubs might have a better chance of taking the government back from the "progressive" wingnuts that are running it right into the ground even as we type this entry.
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