By Debra Houston, contributing columnist | I’d like to respond to the thoughtful column written by Hoyt Tuggle on September 16. He disagreed with my article of September 9 concerning progressivism, especially my point that Hillary Clinton is a progressive.
I know Progressivism has deep roots in the Democratic Party, and that it’s not a new phenomenon. And I agree it grew under President Jimmy Carter. I thought of Carter when I wrote my article, but left him out because in 1980 Ronald Reagan won in a landslide and trounced progressive ideas.
Perhaps Mr. Tuggle was right in saying President Bill Clinton was not a Progressive. I think Clinton was at heart, but hid in the Progressive closet. He saw how popular conservatism was during the Reagan years, so he chose restraint in order to win a second term.
His first lady had no such qualms. Mrs. Clinton worked on a universal health care plan, a progressive objective. Without the authority to enforce it, she wasted countless taxpayer dollars. To say her activity was unpopular at the time is an understatement.
Radical feminism is another progressive benchmark. Feminist to the core, Mrs. Clinton promotes abortion on demand funded by taxpayers, regardless of their religious beliefs.
Furthermore, I tend to believe Mrs. Clinton when she calls herself a progressive. If she weren’t, why would President Obama endorse her and campaign for her?
Both Mrs. Clinton and President Obama revere Saul Alinksy, a 60s community organizer who wrote the book, “Rules for Radicals.” If you haven’t read his twelve rules, you should. They describe progressive tactics. Consider its Rule 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” This one goes hand-in-hand with Rule 12: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Mrs. Clinton employed rules 5 and 12 when she targeted “half” of Trump supporters in a “grossly generalist” manner. She said they belong in a basket of “deplorables.” She ridiculed them as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islam-phobic” and called them “irredeemable.”
Severely criticized for her remarks, she paid a price in negative media coverage. But she confirmed the point of my article, that progressive elitists disdain blue-collar workers, the “uneducated” (non-colleged), and conservative white males. In other words, whoever stands in their path.
Mrs. Clinton not a progressive? I beg to differ.
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