Why I Am Not a Progressive

 

In my intellectual evolution, I find myself between ideological conviction and philosophical doubt. The progressive worldview — that intricate tapestry of compassion, justice, and transformation — contains values I have long believed in and still hold dear. Yet over the years, as I’ve focused more on implementation, I have become increasingly troubled by its internal contradictions, not as abstract curiosities but as tangible barriers to the very world it claims to envision.

The progressive imagination constructs cathedrals of ideals — soaring spires of justice, delicate arches of inclusion, and stained-glass windows that filter the harsh light of reality into something beautiful yet distorted. Standing within this edifice, one feels simultaneously elevated and constrained. As a practitioner rather than merely a theorist, I have slowly recognized that this cathedral, for all its beauty, may be architecturally unsound — its foundational elements working against each other in ways that render the entire structure unstable. The intricate stained-glass windows — each beautiful in isolation — when illuminated together, cast shadows that contradict and complicate one another.

Consider the nuclear contradiction that sits at the heart of progressive energy policy. Progressives tremble before the specter of climate catastrophe while simultaneously rejecting one of our most powerful tools for decarbonization. In Hinduism, we have both worshipped and feared fire; but progressives have constructed a theology around the atom that cannot reconcile its dual nature as both destroyer and savior.

 

The progressive mind similarly attempts to cultivate a garden where fundamentally incompatible plants are expected to flourish side by side. It champion the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals while simultaneously building coalitions with traditional religious Islam whose foundational texts explicitly reject such identities. This is not merely a political challenge but an ontological one — an attempt to square the circle of human dignity across irreconcilable metaphysical frameworks. The western diplomat who hosts Pride events, while negotiating with fundamentalist regimes embodies not flexibility but fracture — a splitting of consciousness that cannot sustain itself beyond temporary political convenience.

My estrangement from progressive ideas emerges not from abstract contemplation but from intimate experience with implementation. The progressive vision, with its beautiful but contradictory elements, often creates self-defeating cycles: opening borders while engaging in foreign policies that create refugees; demanding affordable housing while restricting development; calling for economic justice while constraining the very prosperity that might fund it. Criminal justice reform similarly reveals this tension — the desire to dismantle systems of punishment while still maintaining the social order that punishment ostensibly protects. The progressive imagination sees beyond retribution to restoration, yet struggles to articulate how this transition occurs in a world still governed by fear and retaliation.

Perhaps most revealing is the selective application of compassion that characterizes the progressive conscience. It extends profound empathy toward non-human creatures — advocating veganism, opposing animal testing, mourning extinction — while simultaneously accepting human casualties in conflicts that align with ideological narratives. The progressive who opposes Trump’s peace negotiations in Ukraine or the Middle East while weeping for endangered species embodies a contradiction: that suffering itself has a hierarchy determined not by its intensity but by its political utility.

What emerges is an intellectual echo chamber where self-validation through mutual ideological reinforcement becomes more important than measurable outcomes. The progressive tendency toward endless self-examination and theoretical refinement produces diminishing returns — conference panels dissecting terminology, academic papers critiquing previous frameworks, social media discourse parsing ever-finer moral distinctions — while material conditions remain unchanged. This intellectual infrastructure serves primarily to maintain progressive identity rather than to generate implementable solutions, creating a satisfaction divorced from external results.

As one committed to manifestation rather than merely aspiration, I have found that progressive thought often floats free from the gravitational pull of implementation — a beautiful but untethered balloon that offers perspective without propulsion. The economic redistributionist who has never created wealth, the environmental activist who has never built energy infrastructure, the criminal justice reformer who has never maintained community safety — these perspectives, while valuable, often lack the grounding that comes from engagement with constraints. Progressives have constructed a moral framework that often prizes intent over outcome, narrative over result, and symbolic victory over sustainable transformation.

This progressive identity is exacerbated by a tribalism that divides the world into simplistic moral categories — us versus them, enlightened versus regressive, virtuous versus complicit. This binary framework systematically blinds progressives to practical solutions that originate outside their ideological ecosystem. Even when conservatives or moderates present viable implementation strategies that could advance shared objectives, these contributions are frequently dismissed as insufficient or compromised by association. The progressive preference for perfect theoretical solutions over imperfect practical improvements creates a self-reinforcing cycle of policy failure followed by intensified moral indignation. (We can see this daily in progressives’ indignation and name-calling of Trump, Modi, Meloni, Farage, and other right-centrist leaders).

My departure from progressive identification does not represent abandonment of core values — justice, compassion, growth — but rather a commitment to their actual manifestation. It reflects a growing recognition that the most profound betrayal of these values lies not in rejecting them but in rendering them impossible through internal contradiction. Perhaps wisdom lies not in perfect consistency but in the willingness to dwell within contradiction while still moving forward — to hold opposing truths in an open hand rather than a closed fist, yet still to move that hand in service to genuine transformation. My departure from the cathedral represents not abandonment but evolution — a commitment to building structures that can actually stand.