Where do progressive politics go from here?

Progressivism is reeling from two disasters, of different kinds. The first was the reelection of Donald Trump. The second is the ongoing Los Angeles wildfires. Each, in its own way, has exposed the feeble condition of progressive politics.

Bumble launched in 2014 as a “feminist dating app” that was “designed to challenge outdated heterosexual dating norms.” It distinguished itself on the market and (theoretically) empowered women by requiring them to send the first message, which supposedly helped prevent harassment, predatory messages, and unsolicited nude photos from men.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who has angered liberal Democrats with his unequivocal pro-Israel position, said he no longer considers himself a progressive and thinks people on both the far right and left are wishing he would die.

Fetterman suffered a near-fatal stroke in May 2022 during his campaign, which he previously said changed everything about his life. The senator, who was once considered a progressive champion, has long drawn criticism from Republicans for his stances. Now, he says those on both sides of the political aisle are targeting him.

It was sometime during the mid-1970s — an era when only a handful of female reporters had earned what was considered a plum post reporting politics from the Massachusetts State House.

It was also a time when the political power structure on Beacon Hill was all male — in every sense of that word. And so the tiny band of maybe three or four women reporters weren’t invited to then-Senate President Kevin Harrington’s all-male sail along the scenic North Shore coast.

Exclusion stings — even after all these years.

Segregation in any form, separating people based solely on the color of their skin, is wrong. No ambiguity; no context needed. 

If you’re throwing a party that Gov. George Wallace would approve of, you might want to think twice.

On Thursday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu defended her decision to host an “Electeds of Color Holiday Party,” excluding the city council’s seven white members.

The race-based soirée came to light because an aide accidentally sent an invitation to every member, then awkwardly had to do some fast dis-inviting.

In a new essay in the progressive magazine In These Times, the writers Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet grapple with the contemporary version of an old phenomenon: erstwhile leftists decamping to the right. There have been plenty of high-profile defectors from the left in recent years, among them the comedian Russell Brand, the environmentalist-turned-conspiracy-theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the journalist Matt Taibbi, a onetime scourge of Wall Street, who was recently one of the winners of a $100,000 prize from the ultraconservative Young America’s Foundation.

After a while, it became a parody worthy of classic comedy skits: the Biden administration’s reflexive need to launch into a condemnation of “Islamophobia” every time the discomfiting topic of antisemitism came up — which, you may have noticed, it does quite a bit these days.

Progressives hate antisemitism. Not, unfortunately, the concept... the word. It holds a mirror up to their internal contradictions.

Progressive scholar Cornel West's path to the presidency—and ambitions of posing a genuine challenge to incumbent President Joe Biden—faces numerous hurdles: a lack of resources, a lack of name recognition, and the lack of a major party backing his campaign.

A bigger issue, however, might be the fact he faces a long road to even get his name on the ballot.

The progressives, once called liberals, have a new target to hate. He is Elon Musk. By the way, the progressives have become very complacent about their targets for hatred. They hate Musk today, but it cannot be only because he is the richest man in the world. There is a tremendous competition to be the richest man in the world, and what I would have thought would make this competition all the more ferocious is that most of the competitors are Yanks.