What Does it Mean to be Progressive? Remarks from John Podesta

On October 10, 2005, Center for American Progress President John Podesta visited the University of Wisconsin-Madison to discuss the progressive ideals of protecting rights, accountability, effective government, and social change. A transcript of Mr. Podesta’s remarks are presented below.

I’ve been looking forward to this opportunity to be here with you today.

Having worked on Capitol Hill, in the White House and now as President of the Center for American Progress I discovered a long time ago that while almost every university offers a degree in political science, there are only a handful where students are able to gain a true understanding of politics – and the University of Wisconsin, here in Madison, is among them.

That’s not only a tribute to your faculty; it’s a tribute to you.

Being tenacious and willing to challenge old assumptions and the status quo almost seems to be a prerequisite to being a student at Wisconsin.

In fact, it is almost as if students here in Madison are guided by what Henry Adams once described as a special “passion for regarding their elders as senile.”

I only hope that I don’t reinforce that view today.

But, I have to admit, that coming to Wisconsin to discuss what it means to be a progressive feels a little bit like going to the Vatican to talk about what it means to me to be Catholic.

The difference is that, here, I think I run slightly less of a chance of being excommunicated for my views.

And there is a reason for that feeling.

Because if Philadelphia was to the place where the American Revolution put down its roots then Wisconsin was the place where the progressive revolution put down its roots and challenged our nation to live up to the ideals embedded in those first three words of our Constitution: We the People.

And much of the credit for launching that revolution and leading it goes to a young Wisconsin Governor named Robert LaFolette.

His moniker, as you know, was Fighting Bob LaFolette.

And what he fought for was something we still call the Wisconsin Idea.

It is the idea that an open and effective government can—and should – be a catalyst for social change.

That it should champion the common good over narrow special interest.

That it should offer the opportunity to succeed to anyone who is willing to work hard to pursue their dreams.

That’s why progressives challenged corporate power and broke the back of the monopolies.

That’s why they fought to expand and protect the rights of Wisconsin’s workers and family farmers.

That’s why they weren’t afraid to stand up for fair taxes…for government accountability… and for an idea that today we call protecting the environment.

It was here in this state and in this city that Fighting Bob LaFolette reminded America what democracy is really all about.

“Passive citizenship is not enough,” he warned.

Instead, we must be: “aggressive for what is right if government is to be saved from those who are aggressive for what is wrong.”

The way he saw it, the progressive movement isn’t a grab bag of proposals, policies and position statements. What he understood was that, at its core, the progressive movement was, in fact, a profoundly moral force in American life.

A force for fairness.

A force for dignity.

A force for freedom.

And, I should also add in today’s world, a force for peace and security.

Two years ago we created the Center for American Progress with the aim of generating and promoting new progressive ideas and policies to make our country stronger and better – to put progressive values back to work for the American people.

As part of that effort eight months ago, we launched Campus Progress – it’s our initiative to help young progressives hone their skills, make their voices heard and lay the groundwork for a new generation of progressive leadership: leadership that is better trained, better informed, more diverse, and more united than any other before it.

Key to its success are the young people who work day in and day out to make Campus Progress a tool and a force to students around the country. Tonight, I’m lucky to be joined by one of Campus Progress’ extraordinary staff members, Keisha Senter, who manages our Campus Speakers Bureau.

Working with a growing number of students across the country, Campus Progress creates events – debates, film screenings, and talks like this one – on campuses.

Last summer our first national student conference brought 800 young progressive activists together with former President Clinton, Congressman John Lewis, leading journalists, authors, musicians, and even the center for the Golden State Warriors, Adonal Foyle.

Campus Progress has a web publication that features the best journalism, opinions, and multimedia work of today’s young writers, artists, and activists. Check it out: its CampusProgress.org.

We also provide small action grants for students engaged in issue campaigns. And we support progressive publications, including, I am proud to say, The Madison Observer.

All of this to make sure that young people are able to have the kind of impact in this century that progressive leaders had on the last.

Because the bottom line is that you, your ideas, and your progressive vision have never been more important to our nation – and our world – than they are right now.

Every once in a while there are events which cause Americans to look plainly at who we are and what we believe. Events that seem to stop us dead in our tracks.

The Cuban Missile Crisis.

The march across the Pettis Bridge.

The murders of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

The fall of the Berlin Wall.

Oklahoma City.

These experiences come to represent more than a moment in the public mind. They evoke an exaggerated sense of our nation’s strengths and weaknesses. They prompt us to action or to endless dialogue, commissions and reports. And more often than not, they lay bare something ugly that we could not see or chose not to see.

Your generation is being touched by a different set of events.

Four years ago, there was 9/11: a catastrophe which has redefined American life – and will reverberate through it for years to come.

Then the invasion of Iraq.

And now we are faced with the aftermath of Katrina.

At first glance, a common thread running from Homeland Security through Iraq and Katrina might seem to be this Administration’s competence.

But I think what we are up against today goes far beyond a question of being able to competently plan and execute policy.

Instead, what we are seeing is the moral bankruptcy of conservative ideology and the kind of government it has produced.

This is particularly stark in the case of Katrina.

As we’ve already seen it has occasioned a new round of debate over the issue that reveals the stark differences that separate conservatives from progressives: the concept of the common good and the public interest.

It is not a new discussion.

From the Federalist Papers and the brilliant arguments of Hamilton and Madison to the droning banalities of Hannity and Colmes, the question remains: how much can we trust private interests to protect the public good? And, in a democracy, what does a government owe its people?

One hundred years ago these questions were at the heart of the progressive vision.

Then, as now, Americans lived in the shadow of uncertainty and extremism.

Then, as now, we were faced with a massive economic transformation.

Immigrants were scapegoated.

And a concentrated group of corporations – ironically dubbed the trusts – ruled vast swaths of the new American economy.

It was an era when economic inequality grew, when racial injustice went unchallenged and when our legal system functioned as the guarantor of the status quo.

But that changed.

It changed not because the oligarchs of that time wanted it; but because the American people demanded it.

Because, led by progressives of both parties, the people refused to accept that the wealthy ought to enjoy the benefits of economic change, while workers and farmers should be left to become its victims.

They refused to accept that, in America, young children should work in coal mines – and that young immigrant women should be left with two career choices: to work in a sweatshop…or to work as a prostitute.

Instead they believed, as Theodore Roosevelt did, that unchecked corporate power was creating a nation that offered; “nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism.”

They were convinced that Americans deserved better, but, even more, that government – open, progressive, creative government – was a way to make that happen.

And I submit that history has shown that they were right.

Child labor laws, the direct election of Senators, the pure food and drug act, the right of women to vote, the right to collective bargaining, the minimum wage, safe work places, rural electrification, Social Security, the G.I. Bill, Medicare, affirmative action, guaranteed health care for children.

The list goes on and on.

Each progressive reform laying the groundwork for the next.

From protecting the rights of workers, racial minorities, women, and people with disabilities to breaking down the barriers against Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual and Transgender people, the progressive vision of enlightened, activist government has widened the winner’s circle of American life.

It built the middle class and gave meaning to the American Dream.

But just as progressives have demonstrated the capacity of government to lift Americans up and bring us together; the right wing of American politics has shown over the last generation that it has the capacity to pull Americans down and drive us apart.

Forty years after they ventured into the post-Barry Goldwater wilderness, the radical right has worked ceaselessly to recreate a nation in its ideological image.

And today we see the fruit of their labor.

We are a nation where public services are privatized – and public servants are demonized.

A nation whose leaders not only believe that government cannot solve problems, but where they have done their best to ensure that the government is the problem—corrupt, full of cronies, exclusive, imploding, ignorant.

To a great degree, Katrina has ripped the roof off that conservative house of cards.

Katrina revealed that when things go terribly wrong, there’s no real substitute for the government.

It is true that legions of volunteers rushed to aid the hurricane’s victims in New Orleans, Biloxi and Gulfport, and great credit is due the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and thousands of churches, synagogues and mosques.

But, as they themselves will tell you, the charitable work of religious organizations was meant to augment the government safety net not replace it.

In fact, 95 percent of the Salvation Army’s funds come from government.

But while there is a lot the Salvation Army can do there is even more that it cannot.

We can’t look to the Salvation Army to build new levees, or operate wastewater treatment plants, or fly helicopters to rescue stranded families.

And, as we saw, when families are hungry and homeless we can’t look to Wal-Mart, Marriott or even Carnival Cruise lines to fill the breach.

Now that the floodwaters have more or less receded, how do conservatives propose to rebuild New Orleans and the other communities which were leveled?

Through the creation “Gulf Opportunity Zones” where no-bid contracts are handed off to the connected while laws protecting livable wages are repealed and regulations protecting the environment and health standards are suspended. And when this reconstruction is over, poverty will once again be hidden and concentrated in what former Senator John Edwards has dubbed “Bushvilles”—vast trailer parks of poor people that will remind us of the Hoovervilles of the Depression. usual suspects and the Davis-Bacon Act is repealed so that contractors are spared the trauma of actually having to pay workers a living wage.

In essence, what the conservatives in the White House propose is turning the entire region into a theme park for laissez-faire capitalism.

And, as usual, in the President’s friends in Congress are ready to do whatever it takes to make it happen.

As Indiana Congressman Mike Pence put it, “The desire to bring conservative, free-market ideas to the Gulf Coast is white hot.”

People like that give new meaning to the concept of human subject testing.

But it isn’t enough for progressives to simply critique the conservative response to Katrina.

Instead, we have a responsibility to change the terms of the debate; to put forward new ideas and to deliver.

Can we do it? I am convinced we can.

Seizing the opportunity requires progressives above all to make real the value of community and demonstrate the progressive commitment to strength. We will only succeed when we demonstrate to the American people that in this time of uncertainty and insecurity the new progressive era will give them some measure of control over their lives.  So that the next time a terrible storm blows in, they know not only that the government will be there to rescue them, but that it will also continue to hold fast.

Reconstruction efforts in the Gulf Coast should be guided by common sense policies that are not part of some experiment in fringe market fundamentalism ideology. We have a chance to go beyond the stale debates and address America’s structural ills. That means addressing a national health care crisis that has left thousands of Katrina’s victims—mostly poor and working class African Americans—without basic medical care at a time of need. 

It means integrating geographically and economically the Gulf’s poor with the middle class through housing vouchers and job opportunities in the public and private spheres.  And it means paying a decent wage rather than dropping the floor from underneath the hurricane’s victims. Progressives must make it their cause to stop disaster profiteering by the president’s friends and business partners and start enforcing tough laws against price gouging by oil companies, gas stations, and financial institutions.

Our challenge today as progressives goes beyond direct assistance to those in the Gulf Coast.  Just as reformers in the 20 th century sought to improve conditions for Americans by harnessing the power of the national government to assist the needy and vulnerable and to regulate and balance the pressures and the opportunities of an open, dynamic global economy to provide decent work, we must take this opportunity to confront our biggest challenges— 45 million Americans uninsured; 37 million Americans in poverty; record personal debt and declining wages and benefits.

So, what does it mean to be a progressive?

I’ll tell you what I think it means.

I think it means creating an America where every hard-working citizen can get an education, decent work and fair pay. An opportunity nation where all of us have a chance to step inside the winner’s circle.

My father worked at a sign factory; his son worked at the White House. In the past, America has always stood for opportunity; we need to see to it we stand for opportunity again.

What does it mean to be a progressive?

It means making government truly for the people – making it effective and open and committed to the common good.

It means having leaders who understand that holding public office is an opportunity to help the public; not an opportunity to help yourself.

What does it mean to be a progressive?

It means using this country’s awesome power to bring the world together, not to tear it apart.

It means having leaders who don’t confuse being feared with being respected and who understand that the real measure of America’s true strength has never been the lethality of our weapons but the dynamism of our ideas.

What does it mean to be a progressive?

It means knowing that if our nation is going to move ahead we need to reawaken something that’s been slumbering too long.

You can call it our sense of community: our belief that what binds us together as a people is so much more valuable than the differences which sometimes drive us apart.

What does it mean to be a progressive?

It means supporting progressive legislation, such as Illinois’ landmark corporate accountability act, California’s efforts to provide citizens with low cost prescription drug coverage, and Arkansas’ initiative to enable the children of immigrants to receive an affordable education. It means supporting local and grassroots organizations doing the legwork in communities across the country, like ACORN’s campaign to raise the minimum wage, which has already seen success in Florida and Nevada.

It means re-working our approach to foreign policy and national security, like the Truman Project is—a group of young progressives rethinking everything from military force structure to our relationship with Iran—or the Genocide Intervention Fund, comprised of some highly motivated students at Swarthmore, who are successfully raising awareness and funds to stop the slaughter in Darfur.

It means supporting big, bold ideas and workable solutions to our most pressing problems like reforming health care, education and the tax system and finding a workable exit strategy for Iraq. The Center has put forward plans in each of these areas and is working with the media, legislators, and thinkers inside and outside the Beltway to forge ahead with them. And we are certainly not the only ones.

Today, I want to challenge you to help renew a progressive vision for America and put it to work.

Some of you already are.

Maybe you’re active in the peace movement.

Or you’re involved in human rights work.

Or you’re helping to build support for the labor movement.

Today, I’d like to invite the rest of you to join them…

Together, all of us, we have the power to take this country back.

To make those three words “We the People” ring true for your generation.

Whether you call them the new right, the old right, the far right or the not quite right, conservatism has had its chance.

Now it’s your turn.

Take it.

Thank you.