Looking Back At Looking Forward

The title of this blog is “We Were Right.” It comes from a song I once wrote about how my generation – the one that learned its political lessons in the sixties – has abandoned what it thought was right and has now become what it thought was wrong.

I cannot help but harken back to that song, and those days, and how we felt during them, as I watch the war between the “progressive” Democrats and the “moderate” ones. My sixties self would have been pushing hard for the progressives (we called ourselves “liberal” back then, if not “revolutionary”) But my seventies self (age not decade) finds me frustrated by the progressives and rooting for the moderates.

So, what happened? Am I one of those people that I decried in my song? Has my advanced age pushed me toward a more conservative outlook? Do I no longer feel as deeply for the causes I once revered? Have I gone nuts?

I opt for none of those possibilities (except maybe the “going nuts” one has some merit). I prefer to believe that my support for the moderates is because the world has changed since the sixties; that my generation was a large reason for that change; and that our experience then and since has taught us how best to obtain the very things we then wanted, and still do.

What we really wanted then was an end to the Viet Nam War; an evolution into a new age of civil rights; and a realization that we needed to be listened to. I am setting aside our other cause – “The Sexual Revolution.” But that was really just our attempt to get laid more often. We were in large part successful (again I set aside the getting laid part, at least in my case). Not that we completed the tasks, but that we did get a lot of it going. And that’s the point. We didn’t get everything we wanted, but we did get a good deal of it, and that made the country a better place.

We learned then, and we have learned more since, that achieving everything is less important than achieving something. A pyrrhic victory is no victory at all. Death on the battlefield is still death. 

What the progressives want is laudable and I cannot imagine any reasonable person not wanting it.  Should we not be able to provide for the poor? Should we not be able to make sure that our children have a better education?  And most of all, should we not want to save our planet from environmental destruction? We should want all of those things and it would be fantastic if we could have them NOW. The root word of fantastic is, of course, “fantasy.” Our sixties fantasies did not come true, but our sixties efforts did achieve something and those achievements are things about which we are rightly proud.

The Progressives are right to ask for what they want. But they won’t get it. If they truly want what they are saying they want, and not want just more opportunities to be on talk shows and splash their faces in front of cameras every hour or so, then they have to make concessions.

Oh, sure, some could say that the moderates are the ones who should make the concessions. Why put that sole burden on the progressives? I’m not saying that either side should bear the entire burden. What I am saying is that, at some point, and this is the point, the progressives have to realize that the moderates have the votes. 

When we marched in the sixties it was all about democracy – power to the people.  Well, power to the people means that the most votes win.

So, what does this make me? Am I one of those phony liberals we laughed at in the sixties – the ones that Phil Ochs described in his classic song, “Love Me, I’m A Liberal”. Here’s one of my favorite verses:

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I’ve grown older and wiser
And that’s why I’m turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal

I hope not. Instead I rely on the old saw, “Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” If the progressives undermine the proposed legislation, it will similarly undermine the Democratic majority and, likely, the Biden Presidency. And that might very well mean (and I get nauseous just typing these words) another Trump Presidency. 

I’m not asking for the progressives to fold their tents. Only to move closer to the center. It doesn’t have to be much.  It just has to be enough to preserve any hope of getting, maybe not everything, but a lot of what we all want.

That’s not giving up. That’s progress.  And they are progressives after all.