by D.J. McGuire

I have often said that in the past three years, the political spectrum has thrown me around “like a Martian Congressional Republic Navy vessel dropping into combat maneuvers from a 3g burn with no crash couch.” For those who are not fans of The Expanse, let’s just say I’ve been shaken up – and shaken – since 2015. That said, I do think I can finally place a label (of sorts) on my current political leanings and philosophy: Progressive Conservative.

To most American voters, activists, and politicians, my phrase is an oxymoron, but it was the standard term for the Canadian center-right for decades (and still is used in about half their provinces). More to the point, I simply found it the best way to describe a set of views that simply don’t fall neatly into any political party (major or minor) at present. What I mean by that follows below.

Economic Policies: For the most part, I tend to be somewhere between “classical liberal” and “supply-sider” on economics, which explains much (but not all) of the “conservative” in the label. That said, I’m more willing to accept incremental progress on matters than small-l libertarians are (to say nothing of Capital-L Libertarians). Meanwhile, so many conservatives forgot most of supply-side theory in embracing the dog’s breakfast of last year’s tax cut that I’m afraid a qualifier to my conservatism has become a requirement. This holds even more true in international economics, where my support for freer-trade and for freer-trade areas – but not for customs unions – fails to appeal to any type of libertarians and many conservatives – most of whom conflate FTAs and customs unions. Quite a few conservatives are now reverting to pre-1930 protectionism as well, which I find odious.

Domestic Policies: For the most part, I used to be on “the right” in nearly every cultural issue out there. I will freely acknowledge I’ve shifted “leftward” over the years on more than a few of these: especially on what could be summed up as identity issues (race, gender, sexual identity, etc.) – including my growing concern about white supremacism. I’m also far more skeptical of regulating the poor than I used to be (including changing my mind on work requirements for anti-poverty programs, which I now consider to be a perverse incentive in the labor-devaluing era of automation). This is where the “progressive” part comes in.

Foreign Policy: I suppose this is now my greatest source of departure from… well, from damn near everyone. With each passing day, my fear from 2003 is being realized – I will be one of the last six people on Earth who still considers the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein to be the right thing to do. I am firmly in the camp that was (and in many places, still is) called “neoconservative” – and I have claimed that label for myself more than once; I just don’t think it helps explain my mixture on domestic issues these days. I am still a firm believer in the Democratic Peace theory – and as such, I consider helping the world’s democracies and opposing its tyrannies to be in America’s best interests. That includes the Assad tyranny in Syria, which was what led me to vote for Hillary Clinton – the first Democratic nominee for President for whom I have ever voted, and which puts me in another small minority of Americans – those who do not think the military defeat of ISIS/Daesh is enough to abandon the Syrian people to the bloodthirsty tyrant from Damascus.

With that mixture of views – neoconservative (mostly) abroad, economically conservative (mostly) but culturally progressive (mostly) at home – I just thought it best to take the “progressive” and “conservative” labels and, well, combine them. It seemed the simplest thing to do.

So there you have it.

D.J. McGuire can be heard on the More Perfect Union Podcast.