What should be the next big Progressive/Liberal cause?

[DevotedDemocrat]

In the 1900s, Progressives/Liberals fought for child labor laws, regulations on industry, antitrust laws, food and consumer safety laws, and advances such as the 8 hour work day and organized labor. In the 1930s and 40s they fought for a social safety jet for the aged, unemployed, widowed and disabled, they fought to ensure higher employment and the minimum wage. In the 60s and 70s Liberals fought for civil rights, healthcare for the aged and poor, making college more affordable, attempting to fight poverty, women's rights, sending man into space, and making the first real steps toward protecting and not simply conserving the environment. After the 70s, the desire for national and affordable healthcare for all, equal rights for the LGBT community, women's rights and the like took center stage. As of now, most of those battles are either solved, partially solved, or on their way to being so.

The question is, what should the next Liberal and Progressive platform be?

[Aliens]

Well, I don't think they have much to lose by supporting marijuana legalization as part of their platform.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Well, I don't think they have much to lose by supporting marijuana legalization as part of their platform.

LOL, big cause.

[Middle-aged Europe]

This is largely determined by which direction society is taking. I mean, you're not just making up political issues.

As a political paty you're always picking up interests which already had existed and grown in society... be it the cause of labor unions, civil rights or LGBT activists. If there's a large enough group of people who are demanding something a major political party is gonna pick it up sooner or later.

[Mr. Morden]

Stop continental drift.  Because our tectonic plates should always be moving forward, not just wandering around aimlessly.

[Dave from Michigan]

income inequality

[Mechaman]

I'll just say it:

Universal Education

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Given how Republicans have chosen to define themselves as the party of no taxation even with representation, I'd say that the time is right for Democrats to emphasize Good Schools, Good Roads, Good Infrastructure. etc.  I.e., those government services that clearly benefit all of society from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich, and which the party of user fees and tax rebates fails to deliver adequately.

[TNF]

+ Child labor laws (banning people under 16 from working altogether)
+ Nationalization of industry (because let's be honest, regulation doesn't work, neither do antitrust laws)
+ Food and consumer safety laws (Give the FDA and Consumer Product Safety Commission/FTC real teeth, end the practice of having only 'voluntary' recalls)
+ 4 Day Workweek (32 hour workweek; we work too much, let's give everyone Friday off)
+ Organize labor (Repeal Taft-Hartley, dramatically expand labor legislation so that it is on the side of the worker, rather than the boss)
+ Lower the retirement age (People work too much, lower it to 55)
+ Eradicate unemployment (Guarantee everyone a job)
+ Paid Leave
+ Living Wages ($22 an hour minimum)
+ Universal Basic Income (give everyone $500 a week)
+ Universal Healthcare (not this 'Obamacare' s**t)
+ Universal Education (let everyone go to college who wants to, provide vocational training for everyone else and heavily, heavily encourage the latter; fewer people should go to college but those who do shouldn't pay a dime for it)
+ National Day Care program to ensure that working mothers have an opportunity to continue to work after having a child
+ Full rights and protections for LGBT individuals, including fully paid for sex changes for trans* Americans and simple legal changes
+ Put people on Mars and establish permanent bases on the Moon
+ Expand public transit, phase out oil-based cars in favor of electric-based ones, institute single-payer auto insurance
+ Legalize all drugs, smash the police/surveillance state, and restore civil liberties
+ End Imperial foreign policy. Bring all the troops home, dump Israel.

[IceSpear]

Real universal healthcare to replace DoleCare.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

+ 4 Day Workweek (32 hour workweek; we work too much, let's give everyone Friday off)

This one is really, really, silly. Now, I could possibly see going to a 35 hour (7 hours, 5days/week) or to a 36 hour (6 hours, 6 days/week) workweek but the idea of a 4 day workweek is idiotic.  An occasional three-day weekend is something to look forward to, but there are an awful lot of tasks in which you need one responsible person doing it most business days and there's not much call for businesses to be open only four days a week.

[Blue3]

Is this the 4th or 5th time you've made this thread?

[Marnetmar]

Hey guys

I have an idea

What if

Instead of making up issues like the Republican party

We turned our focus

To things that are actually relevant!

[bedstuy]

I don't see why we need to chose one or two things to focus on.

That said, there's one main issue, reforming the US government and campaigns/elections.  As long as we have the current lobbyist and corporate money dominated system, it's incredibly difficult to move anything forward on a national level.  We probably need Constitutional tweaks to House and Senate apportionment, public financing of campaigns and a new voting rights act.

[traininthedistance]

+ 4 Day Workweek (32 hour workweek; we work too much, let's give everyone Friday off)

This one is really, really, silly. Now, I could possibly see going to a 35 hour (7 hours, 5days/week) or to a 36 hour (6 hours, 6 days/week) workweek but the idea of a 4 day workweek is idiotic.  An occasional three-day weekend is something to look forward to, but there are an awful lot of tasks in which you need one responsible person doing it most business days and there's not much call for businesses to be open only four days a week.

Actually, I think the 32 hour workweek is one proposal of TNF's here that I do support- we live in the future.  We have robots.  We don't need everyone to be slaving away all the time anymore to support a productive economy.

What I take issue with is the idea that the best way to do this is to give everyone Friday off.  That might have made sense decades ago, in the old paradigm of everyone working in factories and offices, but think about instead where people increasingly actually work- in the "service" sector- and also think about what people are going to do with their extra time off.  They're going to go to restaurants, to bars, to the doctor, to stores, to shows, etc... all things that require other people to be working to make the most of one's time off.  It's not like we all have Sunday off as a day of rest to stay home and contemplate the Lord and don't do anything outside anymore.

Give people more time off, absolutely- but stagger that time off, so it's actually useful.  Maybe one person can work Mon-Thu, maybe someone else can be on the clock Thu-Sun, etc.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Repeal of repressive and unconstitutional "right-to-work" laws maybe?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

+ 4 Day Workweek (32 hour workweek; we work too much, let's give everyone Friday off)

This one is really, really, silly. Now, I could possibly see going to a 35 hour (7 hours, 5days/week) or to a 36 hour (6 hours, 6 days/week) workweek but the idea of a 4 day workweek is idiotic.  An occasional three-day weekend is something to look forward to, but there are an awful lot of tasks in which you need one responsible person doing it most business days and there's not much call for businesses to be open only four days a week.

Actually, I think the 32 hour workweek is one proposal of TNF's here that I do support- we live in the future.  We have robots.  We don't need everyone to be slaving away all the time anymore to support a productive economy.

What I take issue with is the idea that the best way to do this is to give everyone Friday off.  That might have made sense decades ago, in the old paradigm of everyone working in factories and offices, but think about instead where people increasingly actually work- in the "service" sector- and also think about what people are going to do with their extra time off.  They're going to go to restaurants, to bars, to the doctor, to stores, to shows, etc... all things that require other people to be working to make the most of one's time off.  It's not like we all have Sunday off as a day of rest to stay home and contemplate the Lord and don't do anything outside anymore.

Give people more time off, absolutely- but stagger that time off, so it's actually useful.  Maybe one person can work Mon-Thu, maybe someone else can be on the clock Thu-Sun, etc.

That's actually a really good idea.  Additionally, people could still have time to attend religious services on the days that they choose, rather than only get time off on Sundays, which is kind of unfair to people who don't attend services on those days.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

+ 4 Day Workweek (32 hour workweek; we work too much, let's give everyone Friday off)

This one is really, really, silly. Now, I could possibly see going to a 35 hour (7 hours, 5days/week) or to a 36 hour (6 hours, 6 days/week) workweek but the idea of a 4 day workweek is idiotic.  An occasional three-day weekend is something to look forward to, but there are an awful lot of tasks in which you need one responsible person doing it most business days and there's not much call for businesses to be open only four days a week.

Actually, I think the 32 hour workweek is one proposal of TNF's here that I do support- we live in the future.  We have robots.  We don't need everyone to be slaving away all the time anymore to support a productive economy.

Just to be clear, my disdain for the idea was not over the reduction in hours for a full-time job, but the idea that a four day work week would be a good thing.

[t_host1]

Forgetting the pass will be the most important part of a platform for the Godless Progressive Liberal to exist, especially as a Democrat, being relevant to a humanity that insists on the terms of constitutional order.

Child labor laws have diminished the family/community farm and business environment. For there to be any value of something, labor, being exploited will always be required.
 
Unions gave us Detroit and like with New York bringing the end to its existence.

There is nothing affordable for the 100% who work without a safety net.

Minimum wage continues the drift to 1/3 of one’s life too mediocrity, no sense of purpose, resulting in the height of suicide and violence on to others. Yes, Progressive Liberalism deployments from Democrats are the reasons for this increased degenerating occurrence.

Drug and homosexual use is a distraction from an order that a majority of people increasingly see disappearing; relationships, reward.

The Democrat Party Platform; for a minority, know, what it isn’t.
    
The Obama/O'Reilly superboul talk is the standard, ignorance.
 

[H. Ross Peron]

Forgetting the pass will be the most important part of a platform for the Godless Progressive Liberal to exist, especially as a Democrat, being relevant to a humanity that insists on the terms of constitutional order.

Child labor laws have diminished the family/community farm and business environment. For there to be any value of something, labor, being exploited will always be required.
 
Unions gave us Detroit and like with New York bringing the end to its existence.

There is nothing affordable for the 100% who work without a safety net.

Minimum wage continues the drift to 1/3 of one’s life too mediocrity, no sense of purpose, resulting in the height of suicide and violence on to others. Yes, Progressive Liberalism deployments from Democrats are the reasons for this increased degenerating occurrence.

Drug and homosexual use is a distraction from an order that a majority of people increasingly see disappearing; relationships, reward.

The Democrat Party Platform; for a minority, know, what it isn’t.
    
The Obama/O'Reilly superboul talk is the standard, ignorance.
 

lolwut

Anyways I think the future great Progressive cause ought to be an ambitious program of infrastructure-energy reform that will stimulate the economy while reducing use of fossil fuels: repairing existing infrastructure, building a national high speed rail system, massively expanding public transportation in metropolitan areas, reducing sprawl and instead building-up in urban areas, encouraging middle-class families to stay in cities (rather than the current mix of the ultra-wealthy, young professionals, and lower-class minority families), building dozens of new nuclear power plants, phasing out coal, and expanding energy research.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

Animal rights.

[bgwah]

Animal rights.

That is probably a century or two off, but if a breakthrough is made in test tube meat, it could happen a lot sooner.

[TJ in Oregon]

Hopefully something good for once and get rid of the death penalty.

[DC Al Fine]

Hopefully something good for once and get rid of the death penalty.

Lol don't be silly. My money's on euthanasia.

[TJ in Oregon]

Hopefully something good for once and get rid of the death penalty.

Lol don't be silly. My money's on euthanasia.

You're probably right too. That seems like a fringe cause on the cusp of becoming a national issue and primed to change quick too.