As the right has used stereotyping and scapegoating to attack low-income people, progressives have been unable to mount an effective counterattack. As a result, the right has picked off programs like public housing, welfare, and legal aid, one by one. Progressives have been unable to convince the country that it is losing the only recourse to social justice now available. Widespread acceptance of the right's caricatures, and the use of their language even by some progressives, illustrates how far the progressive movement has fallen. Liberalism has become a scapegoat for an economic reordering in which the average person has less and the wealthy and the corporate sector have more.
Progressives lack a ready response.
Using a marginalized group as a scapegoat is not an option for us. Without the cooperation of the media and without a public receptive to this message, we could not effectively rebut the right. The result has been the spread of the right's disinformation, loss of popular support for liberalism, and electoral defeat. Progressives must face this bleak picture of our current political context head-on. In order to craft an effective response, we need an accurate understanding of existing conditions.