Priorities

As a liberal/progressive/Democrat, it sometimes feels like one of our greatest strengths is, at times, a weakness. I’m speaking of the great diversity of experience and opinion within our camp. The right-wing has pretty successfully campaigned on their three G’s (God, guns, and gays) and done so in the service of an agenda which has been responsible for a massive explosion of inequality, and has been detrimental to the well-being of all but the most affluent. They have been able to hammer their talking points home with a discipline that would almost be admirable, if it didn’t come from a place so filled with ignorance and hate. On the other hand, liberals at times seem determined to live up to the stereotype of a person unwilling to take their own side in an argument. I realize that my opinion doesn’t count for much, but I would really like our side of the aisle to pick three issues to focus on and just continue to work toward policies that addressed them. 

If you were to ask me what those issues should be, I would probably decide that we should focus on working to reduce economic inequality, protecting women’s rights (particularly as it relates to healthcare), and working to improve criminal justice policy (specifically as it relates to people of color and the poor). I’m not saying that there aren’t other issues out there that aren’t worthwhile for liberals to concern themselves with, but I do think that these issues would have the best opportunity to bring together the disparate elements within our camp, and that making progress on these topics would improve the probability that success could be achieved on other issues. Additionally, these issues are broad enough that it would allow for a variety of approaches in addressing them, which would allow for our diversity of opinion, talent, and life experience to operate as a point of strength. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we should be looking to excommunicate anyone from the movement for having different priorities, but asking for a little bit of focus shouldn’t be a position that requires courage to hold (and at times I really think it does at the moment). That’s my two cents on the issue, and of course your mileage may vary. I’d love to hear back from you, and to know what your opinion on this is.