ihlin mentioned earlier today that progressives were losing the fight on abortion, as they were losing on every other social issue.
Do you feel that is true? Do you feel there are any social hot-button issues in particular that progressives or moderates are losing ground on? Are there any that they are gaining ground on?
The problem with abortion is that to say people are losing ground implies that they want to have lots of abortions. And most of them don't. They want women to have choices and to have access to all the medical information. I think that most of the people who are pro-life and are in the younger generations are that way precisely because they had choices and options. I feel like the shriller that the far-right gets on abortion, the more people will realize that the middle ground - working with women and with their husband or boyfriend (if he's in the picture) about ways to prevent pregnancy and options if they do have an unwanted pregnancy - is far better than going around bombing clinics, or screaming "MY BODY MY CHOICE!!!!" and having no role for the man at all, or dragging women off to jail while they are bleeding and falling apart inside (as they do in South Carolina).
The issue that concerns me more than anything in terms of progressive response is gun control. The NRA deserves much of the blame/credit for the hardline stances on gun control, but beyond that, I think that gun-control forces have done a shoddy job of a) articulating the stances and positions of gun control (remember when their unofficial spokeswoman Rosie O'Donnell went around saying that the only people who should have guns are cops, and that anyone with a gun should be arrested??), b) working on developing legislation that will protect some rights of individual gun owners, and most of all, c) motivating people that gun control is an issue to rally around. The pro-choice rally this year had hundreds of thousands. The gun-control rally a few weeks later had at best a thousand. It seems like people have an agonizingly difficult time rallying gun control advocates to vote the way that the NRA rallies gun rights supporters.
Some people have said that the only "progressive" movement to gain ground in the past few decades has been those who fight for gay rights. ( http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=6588 ) That is, of course, up for some debate, as the state legislatures are increasingly anti-gay and gerrymandering has made both them and Congress far more hostile to gay issues. But momentum, coming out to friends/family/coworkers, vastly improved relations between gay groups (who spent so much of the past 3 decades brutalizing each other over any random issue), and a stronger media machine have made more strides on this front than anyone (including the gay community) ever imagined possible even 5 years ago. But the only real potential for continued growth is if these groups and pro-gay voters work to rebuild state legislatures and Congress, instead of relying on the courts. The courts will not always be there to "save" us, and at times have been our worst enemy.
Aside from each group working together (which is difficult but more common than in the past...NOW used to rage at "the lavendar menace", now they are some of the gay community's strongest allies), I think the most important thing is to show America that these are not "liberal" issues, but human issues. And I feel like on gay rights and on some other issues, that is slowly but surely happening.
The environmental issue and how the far-right made this into "tree-huggers" really ticks me off as well, but maybe some of you can discuss that better than me.