I have to agree with personally being both populist and progressive. Reframing from progressive into economic-populist can leave so much out from our priorities, such as gender diversity, racial justice, anti-war peace, climate justice, etc. On the other hand, I do also see the point about how emphasizing our politically progressive stances of such cultural inclusivity does in a way play into the far-right culture war bs; we reduce our populist appeal.
Part of this dynamic is why I have argued for progressive~ish republicans in this thread. Ideally populist economics would become established as bipartisan, usurping obsolete establishment economic politics, (while other cultural politics may still be partisan).
Another aspect to this dynamic reminds me of how MLK responded to critiques on his widely inclusive perspective. I’ll quote an article I previously referenced in this other thread:
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It is difficult to overstate the political risk that King was taking when he stepped up to the podium at Riverside Church. Our nation had been at war in Vietnam for two years, more than 400,000 American service members were deployed, and roughly 10,000 American troops had been killed. The war had enthusiastic bipartisan support within the political establishment, and those who dared to criticize it were often labeled communists and subjected to vicious forms of retaliation. Many of King’s friends and allies warned him that speaking the truth about the war would jeopardize the fragile gains of the civil rights movement. Little could be achieved, they said, by speaking up for people halfway around the world, and much could be lost. “Why are you joining the voices of dissent?” they asked. “Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people?”King acknowledged the source of their concerns but said that their questions revealed that they did not really know him, his commitment, or his calling. Indeed, as far as he was concerned, “they do not know the world in which they live.” King acknowledged that it is not easy for people to speak out against their own government, especially during wartime, and that the situation in Vietnam was complex. But he felt morally obligated to speak for the suffering and helpless children of Vietnam.
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MLK, I argue, was right to have such a perspective on the intrinsic interrelatedness of the perhaps seemingly disparate political issues. Especially, he was right to clarify that and how the issues are not disparate, in order to grow the perspectives which argued for appeasing (or argued from) narrow-mindedness. On growing mindfulness, I shared a video discussion in this thread.