Reply #25: I can't speak as a democrat, but as for progressives [View All]

of which there may be yet more than a few in the Democratic party, we commonly believe:

1) The nation is an imperfect social system...it needs to be improved. Unfortunately that means advocating change which is a strong antagonizer of one of conservatives' core beliefs...system stability, which is why progressive ideology usually gets thrown out of speeches a couple of months before election day.

2) Progress in society may measured as increases (seen as improvement) in society particularly with respect to the intersecting domains of Liberty, Justice, and Equality.

As a dyed in the wool progressive I absolutely believe the nation was founded by progressives, and therefore that anyone who "gets" the American experience would with little hesitation accept the concepts of Liberty, Justice and Equality for All.

These core beliefs of progressives can be used to consider implications of legislation and regulation and thereby guide both public and personal decision making.

These core progressive beliefs will likely be strongly linked to personal traits like openness to change, willingness to consider idealism alongside practicality, dislike/distrust of formal hierarchical social systems (capitalist elites/landed gentry, concepts of innate superiority embodied in peerage/monarchy as well as the theocratic hierarchies/degrees of preisthood, etc present in some religions)...

Progressive beliefs will also be found correlated to the promotion of education as well as fair labor/trade laws, choice, inclusiveness etc. many of which will show up in this thread as shared values of Democrats.