Thread by @l78lancer

If:

A - Democracy is government rule of, for, and by the people,

and

B - Progressivism is governance, administration, creation and implementation of policy and processes to effect the broadest, most wide-ranging benefit and rights to the greatest number of people,

then

A+B=C

C - Democratic Progressivism is government directed by the people which seeks to provide greatest level of participation in, and benefits to the individuals being served on a forward-going basis.

It's government that maximizes rights and services to the people with the greatest possible efficiency. It's more meritocratic than egalitarian, but it endeavors to ensure minimal standards and benefits to all.

It is democratic progressivism that is at the heart of the constitution. It's built that way. That's what the founders - even in their concerns that under the wrong conditions democracy could potentially become mobocracy - intended.

That's why the republican form of government provided is organically democratic because the people pick the representatives. And the design of the constitution facilitates the constant development, implementation, and change in policies necessary to meet the people's needs.

That's why we're the Democratic Republic of the United States of America, a Federal Republic.

Even the constitution itself has been provided for, to enable and facilitate adaptation based on society's requirements and growth. It has a built-in mechanism for change.

That's why there is an amendment process.

But conservatives would have us believe otherwise. They start with the basic premise that the constitution is a dead document. If they constitution is dead, how can it be expected to serve a society that is alive and thriving?

Functionally, it can't. Furthermore, because conservatism, by definition, means to stay in place and resist change, as an ideological requirement, change, improvement, and progress must be resisted. How then is conservatism expected to keep up in a changing world? It's not.

Thus conservatism's expectation is to hold the world in place with it, somewhere in the past.

But while it is reasonable and expected to justify change that moves society into the future while meeting present needs, it is impossible to justify standing still and not adapting.

Because there is no rational explanation, theory, logic, or justification, conservatism's most potent weapon is obstruction to progress, and the dismantlement of the structures that facilitate and enable change.

If you have no policy proscriptions, no vision for the future, and no feasible governing methodology to facilitate what you do, then in order to compete, the next best thing then is to tear down and discredit the ideologies and structures that do.

At one time, conservatism at least pretended to observe and abide by representative government. But ideally, that meant allowing the people to select the representatives. But as demographics shift, and conservativism diminishes, that places conservatism at a serious disadvantage.

But rather than adapting to change, conservatism has turned in or itself, on the notion governance, and on the constitution itself. Instead of expanding the franchise, it is limiting it with the expectation that a conservative minority will dominate and will assign rights.

Consequently, the push for voter suppression, disfranchisement, and election invalidations have take on outsized proportions to derail the transition of power. Conservatism and conservatives view an engaged voting public as an imminent existential threat.

So they've gone to war against voting, one of the foundational rights, and what makes this nation what it is.

That is antithetical to the reasons the constitution and the war for liberty was fought in the first place.

Conservatism is averse to the provision of services, collection of taxes, and the structures of government itself. Because there are no policy proscriptions, culture wars and values debates are substituted.

In the past, debates were over federalism - strong central versus smaller weaker, more distributed power to the states. Conservatism has become completely unmoored from any beliefs it one held in structured government.

Instead, conservatism is driving hard towards antistatism.

Antistatism, for all intents and purposes, is government chaos and anarchy under the guise and pretense of individual freedom and liberty. For all intents and purposes, antistatism is no government at all.

And the continual provision of services and the extension of rights to individuals are viewed as an abomination. Despite the fact that the people pay the taxes and thus have a right to the rights and services, conservatives view rights and services as entitlements to the few.

But with no argument to refute what is specifically called for in the constitution, government provided rights and services to the people are labeled socialism, or communism, specifically to engender fear, hate, and resentment by conservatives towards government.

In that fashion, conservative voters would rather deprive themselves or rights and services while providing those thing to the conservative elites who drive their ideological beliefs, to deprive anyone unlike them of any benefits.

It's malicious, counter-productive, and contrary to their own vested interests. But, fear is a powerful motivator, and conservatism is driven by fear and resentment rather than hope. That seems to be proof of the lack of vision of conservatism.

All the while, conservatism looks outward to place its failures and blame for its decrepit state on others.

Fear and resentment look perpetually towards the past. Hope builds with eyes towards the future. That is Democratic Progressivism.

So when you step back and take a good, long hard look at conservatism it is not hyperbolic to say that it is literally regressive, diminishing, and increasingly, virulently desperate. Its tenets and function places in more in line with autocracies or monarchies.

Its governance and ideology is more akin to feudalism, and it's supporters of the mindset serfdom. Conservatism is more geared for and apparently looking forward to a world more in line with July 3, 1776, than May 1, 2021.

That seems to be why Democratic Progressivism - and progressives - are the enemy of conservatism, rather than simply fellow citizens who in the long run are working for their benefit, too.

Democratic Progressivism is the future.

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