I don’t consider myself a progressive or left winger by any means, but I think recent US election and elections around the globe, make clear of one thing: voters in most jurisdictions don’t like left wing policies and until the left changes most places are going to have to get used to right winning most of the time. Yes Canada may oddly enough be the one exception that bucks this right wing trend as our culture is more tailored to modern progressive message than just about anyone else, but with how interconnected people are I am not sure if we can totally avoid right wing shift. Just will probably be more muted here and softer than most places. And if left is able to rebound, Canada will probably be where it begins. Trudeau’s win in 2015 in many ways was a false start to comeback in progressivism and BBC at time even hinted what happens in Canada often spreads elsewhere. No doubt many other progressive parties tried to copy Trudeau strategy only to find their voters unlike Canadians were not interested. Below are several areas where progressives are failing and I will say why and where I think they need to change.
Minority rights
Contrary to what some on left like to claim, most people are not bigots or intolerant. Maybe have some prejudices but tolerance and bigotry is along a spectrum not a clear you are one or another. And minority rights advancements can indeed work but current path left is doing is destined to fail. Telling people they are oppressors and should be ashamed of themselves will just ensure those targeted be it males, whites, heterosexuals etc, will vote for parties that will push back against this. Outside academic bubbles no one likes being called an oppressor or shamed. And even for those left intends to help, many don’t like this as people don’t like being told they are oppressed and only liberal elites can save them. Most like to believe if work hard, play by rules, they have a chance to do well in life. So instead progressives should focus on inclusivity where everyone is judged as an individual not what group they are part of. And that goal is to ensure everyone can enjoy the same ability to thrive. Martin Luther King Jr took this approach as did Nelson Mandela and it worked while people like Mugabe and Malcolm X took the approach of trying to get back at those doing racism and both were failures. For trans rights which seems the major one, it can be won but not with current approach. Like with gay rights, it is a gradual path not overnight as people can only tolerate so much change. Gay marriage came years after homosexuality was legalized and since done gradually it worked long term. Asking for biological men who are trans to compete in women’s sports or use women’s bathrooms is not something people are comfortable with and pushing this will just ensure gains get set back. Instead focus on ending discrimination and ensuring trans have same human rights as all other groups. Likewise virtue signaling just annoys people. So to those on left, remove pronouns from bio, stop saying which treaty land on. All that does is anger other side and achieves little. End results not feeling like morally right is what should matter.
Redistribution
Some have suggested that left wing economic populism is solution but elections asides from maybe Canada make clear this is not a vote winner either. Believe it or not, most people don’t spend their day thinking about billionaires and how struggling because of how well they do. Billionaires are too far removed from most people’s lives so its more in academia where people focus on income inequality not your average person. In fact most people don’t want more equal outcomes, they want equality of opportunity. Most believe those who work hard and are most productive should make most. So things like taxing rich and more redistribution are by many seen as punishing success and rewarding laziness. Off course that is not totally true but outside a handful of cultures like Canada where tall poppy syndrome is common, this view is held by many. Those struggling want opportunity to succeed on their own hard work, not be given more by taking from someone more productive. So I think going forward asides a few places, higher taxes on rich should be reserved for dealing with large deficits, not for purpose of redistribution. And new social programs as I will discuss should focus on opportunity not looking after people.
Social Programs
In Europe welfare state is already large enough so fixing existing programs not adding new should be focus. In US I believe adding new programs can work, but go slow. Otherwise decide one thing that won’t cost a lot of money and will make people’s lives materially better like with Obamacare. No more of this like Build Back Better trying to add a whole slew of new programs. We live in a consumption culture and heavy spending unless you are like Japan with age structure means either higher inflation and/or interest rates and voters clearly want neither. So doesn’t mean give up on new programs but find them by cutting elsewhere or find ones that get good bang for buck that are not too costly and deliver benefits to a large number of people not a small niche group.
Immigration
If there is any issue helping the right, it is immigration. Open borders where anybody can come and no immigration are too extremes which actually despite accusations very few people believe in. However, throughout developed world general view is immigration is too high. As such controlled borders are something all parties need to advocate for since when people feels government has control over who is coming in, then you will get higher confidence in system than if they do not. Likewise numbers should try to balance dealing with an aging population and shortages they cause, but also low enough can build enough infrastructure to meet population growth without pricing out many. And on culture, multiculturalism may sound nice but that doesn’t mean anything goes. People don’t mind different food, festivals etc, but they don’t want people coming who are hostile to the country’s values. Those at recent protest chanting from the river to the sea or celebrating October 7th are rightly seen as people hostile to country’s values and most don’t want West welcoming such. So left needs to not argue for pulling up draw bridge but smart immigration. If they do not, it is only a matter of time before more extreme who want to close down all borders win.
Crime
People want to feel safe in their communities and the rights of larger community matter. Many people and with good reason feel left is adopting policies that make them feel safe. And remember people don’t vote on academic studies, they vote on how they feel. So no amount of academic studies telling them they are wrong is going to change their mind. Most believe in individual responsibility and don’t accept excuses for breaking the law. So light sentences, defund police, and lax bail may be popular within some corridors of academia who live in communities far removed but not regular people. Giving people a second chance is fine but you let out criminals once fully rehabilitated and have turned themselves around not before. Likewise on drugs, harm reduction is becoming increasingly unpopular. Its not that people lack compassion for addicts; its just their compassion is not unlimited. People don’t want their communities being overrun with drug users and while no clear solution; politicians that are seen as being soft on it are getting rejected by voters. Amount of chaos in some cities from drug users is too much so find a way to get them down. People won’t support safe injection sites in their community if things are getting worse no matter what some academic study says. You need community buy-in to open one.
Climate Change
Most believe climate change is real and yes want to take action within reason. But most care even more about being able to afford gas, groceries, and other things in life. Climate change plans that make life more expensive for average person and lead to job losses won’t work long term. Real focus needs to be in private sector on technologies that are not just clean but can deliver what people want at a lower cost. Luckily US is one of the most innovative countries on earth and I believe it is going to come through this innovation how we find a solution. Unfortunately for many on left this is a tough pill to swallow as goes against ideology and it is uncertain. Perhaps this is where they should use carrot rather than stick approach by giving incentives to companies and start ups in clean energy but should do with lower taxes on such, not subsidies.
In summary left is going to have to dial things back if they want to win. In Europe where you have multiple parties, main thing stopping far right is you have centre-right alternatives, but in US where one is lacking; many are deciding far right preferable over left. Fact is in most countries, combined right is exceeding 50% and only a handful like Canada are progressives still a majority (in fact it might be only one). I hate to say it, but even in countries where far right not in power, I do believe in a two party system like US most would choose far right over left. 90s was last time centre-left parties did well and did so by moving to centre like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schroeder, and Jean Chretien. Third way progressivism of 90s will need to be different as world is a very different place. But overall on political spectrum will mean being in similar place. Goal should be about moving in right direction not perfection and left needs to accept in vast majority of countries public no matter how spun public just doesn’t want to go there. FDR’s New Deal and the Keynesian consensus of 60s and 70s is over and those assuming it will come back any day may end up waiting a very long time. World is much different than that era. In case of Canada, it does seem many things left pushes people tolerate more with less pushback and have greater support, but even then not sure can totally buck trend. Next election will be interesting since if Trudeau or another leader for Liberals recover or NDP pulls off a surprise win will show we are truly the exception. But if Poilievre wins as polls suggest, may suggest even we have our limits too. But the Trudeau model only sometimes works in Canada; it is destined to fail if tried anywhere else and even Canada may be turning away from it.
afiscalconservativepointofview 
In Canada, I believe the only path the Liberals have to victory right now is to annihilate the NDP and Greens. The Conservative support looks pretty much locked in the low 40s (the mid-40s seems to be a ceiling, but depends on progressives staying home). If the CPC gets to, say, 41%, the LPC needs to get to around 37-38% to have a chance.
One thing that might benefit the Liberals is that they and the NDP are basically playing in the same playing field – urban and progressive ridings. (The NDP are almost certainly toast in the resource regions, and most of their MP’s there are running away now.) If the Liberals can coalesce the left, they could win the urban and suburban vote and have a chance, at the cost that the NDP falls to single digits in popular vote and loses nearly all their seats (certainly losing official party status). However, it’s a very narrow path since the Bloc Quebecois are running quite high, and with immigration likely to increase as an issue, I can’t see the Bloc losing much support.
Best case scenario for the Liberals is to win back enough to hold on to Montreal and Toronto, become the progressive voice and take down the NDP in Vancouver, and do well in Atlantic Canada. The rural and small city seats are probably gone no matter what. Worst case scenario is a vote split and low Liberal turnout that basically wipes them out, gives the Conservatives a massive majority AND the Bloc the official opposition. That would be a crazy Parliament!
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I would say largely true. I do think though Conservatives could fall into high 30s. Right now polls consistent in low 40s but often as it looks like win inevitable some who simply want change but not supporters stay home. Saw that in UK where until final week, almost all polls put Labour north of 40%, but on election day only got 34%. I don’t expect Conservatives to fall that far but just saying some reversion to mean tends to happen.
Atlantic Canada is interesting as largely rural so should go Conservative but high number depend on government programs so if focus is on potential conservative cuts it may swing back.
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I do not agree that progressivism is dying. I think what is considered progressive is changing. In the past, it was considered progressive to grant concessions to China, especially but not only economic concessions. Today, that view is changing. In the past, many felt open immigration, even open borders, was a progressive policy. That view has quickly been abandoned as anti-progressive. Most understand that if immigration from Muslim majority and Muslim fundamentalist countries is too fast, it could change our society into an anti-progressive, maybe even dictatorial place where human rights and even scientific progress are at risk.
Gay rights have never been guaranteed outside the west but there has been no erosion of gay rights in the west. What many can’t get their heads around is the spectrum concept of sexuality and rights for trans women to compete in sports (there is nowhere near the opposition to trans men in sport). In fact, trans men and women compete in business equally by not focusing on the issue. The snobby upper-class left must abandon their bashing of everyone who has insufficient facility with proper pronoun use and emphasize the duty of every one of us to seek not only to be understood but also to understand the other. Bashing, insulting, excluding is a fools’ pursuit.
Wealth redistribution cannot work with any but a global government. The best way to sell a national guaranteed income is to illustrate the $millions in savings it could afford if done properly (and means tested) and administered by CRA income tax software, as rebates current are. We would need to sell it as progressive, that is to say, as a means of saving taxpayers $millions at the same time as eliminating poverty and homelessness almost entirely. Current welfare payments are simply too low to keep the poorest housed, especially in our housing crisis. Progressive, in this area of government, should be seen as saving money while solving the housing crisis. It can be done and it’s progressive. But it needs proper marketing and a government willing to take it on.
Corrections will be a growth industry if we are to maintain order so those social workers who lose their jobs to software-administered guaranteed income, can transfer their skills to Corrections. Corrections should be administered in the community for all but the most violent offenders and should include far longer periods of supervision that current parole/probation allows. Rehabilitation and supervision should be about building relationships and growing habits to support pro-social lifestyles. That takes time and is not aided by detention. Supervision is necessary but not detention (except for repeat and violent offenders).
I believe we could dramatically reduce addictions with progressive policies to fund police to shut down domestic production of drugs (which has become an export industry in Canada) and stop illegal drug imports. I consider such a policy dramatically progressive, in fact. Together with that policy that would get most addicts clean, a guaranteed income/negative income tax rebate program that allows the poor and the broken to live (afford rent and food) without supplementing their income by working for organized crime would be extremely progressive.
Climate change is a heart breaker and could really upset the apple cart globally. With 8.2+ billion people on earth and the greatest number of displaced persons in human history and growing, climate disasters will displace more and more and then what do we do about borders? We really need policies to facilitate a more migratory lifestyle for our species. We need policies for our species to regulate movement safely across the globe during climate disasters. Maybe we shouldn’t offer citizenship or voting rights to refugees but help them vote in their own elections (electronically) and to rebuild when the climate changes allow. Maybe we should better fund seed repositories and technology for growing protein-based food in labs that do not require so much space as livestock does together with farms built upwards, into the sky. Pretty progressive, IMO.
I do not think the left has a monopoly on progress. And in fact, the advances in AI and AGI may change how our species organizes fundamentally. With the development of executive function software, business will get a new face that may intersect with social status reorganization, wealth distribution included. Medicine will be administered more and more by both hardware and software. Even how democracy is done may well change as global elections and public decision making becomes accessible to the whole world via referenda software. Or we could see democracy pass away in favour of some hybrid system of technocracy that includes a downloading to local government of local decision-making. If it was something all of humanity could agree on, in a democratic referendum, (or even if it comes to pass via rigged elections and compromised democracies run by billionaires) it could happen.
The traditional left – communism, socialism – has taken a bit of a whacking with the war in Ukraine and the alliance of Russia with Iran and North Korea. The right is leading the way to erode the influence of the UN and maybe also the EU in political organization in the west. But what if left and right vectors become meaningless in the relative near future? What if climate change, conflict and technology cause an evolution of social organization?
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I agree definition of progressive matters but certainly what the current left is pushing doesn’t seem to be selling. While left and right have ups and downs, support for parties on left is probably lowest I have seen in my 43 years on this earth while right is highest point, even higher than in early 80s. Yes 80s was in some way pinnacle for right in terms of when neo-liberalism at peak but that was mostly in Anglosphere and much more muted elsewhere. This time around while right varies, it seems its a battle between right wing populism and centre-right and it best maybe dead centre, but anything left of that just isn’t selling. To be fair in past left did have the academic wing have the degree of control they do today and I think when you have a party that appeals to academia you are destined to lose as most don’t want to go there.
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What the left is selling is not progress. That’s all. It’s regressive to play Haza Salam on Remembrance Day to a school that has the highest population of Jewish students in Ottawa and to do it in the name of the allegedly progressive DEI goals, to say it doesn’t matter who it offends because those who died were white. IMO, the left has lost all sense of what progress means. It is not progressive to neglect social policy so severely that there are millions of Canadians without a family doctor and growing numbers of homeless and hungry living on our streets. And sure health and welfare are largely administered by provinces but immigration policy has flooded our streets with no increase in welfare rates and not enough housing. It is not at all progressive. It is cruel. And to grow crime by keeping welfare rates so low the poor and broken must join gangs and commit crimes if they want to survive is the antithesis of progress as organized crime does not care about fairness or progress but only about wealth and power. I think the left needs to take a good look at what they are doing in the context of the real meaning of progress. They need to listen instead of talking so much and telling everyone who can’t get their tongues around the political correct speech they demand to shut up. They need to listen not only with their ears but also with their hearts and reach out to the uneducated and downtrodden and include them – really include them – instead of kicking them to the curb as so much filthy garbage.
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That is true on social policy but even on economic not sure that tax and spend is exactly popular either. I think people like targeted spending to help those struggling but not spending like crazy as worry just fuels inflation and drives up costs.
But certainly talking down to people unhelpful. Idea we know best for you is not something people like and will tend to prefer those who listen to them not talk down.
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