Progressive Exhaustion, In-Fighting, and a Stalled Movement—Can We Reignite the Fight?

I write this a month into paternity leave as my daughter Lily sleeps cradled on my left shoulder. Yup, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Taking these weeks to bond with her, while also working on a much-put-off book on the Flint water-cover up, has definitely been a change of pace from the non-stop reporting grind of the last seven years. It’s also given me some time to step back and take a 360-degree view of the progressive movement I care so much about.

Like many of you reading, since 2016, I’ve gone non-stop. In my case traveling the country, reporting in over 30+ states and cities, trying to break important stories the corporate media ignores, doing the daily live stream and content grind, and trying to build an independent journalism company. For you, maybe it was volunteering for Bernie, or AOC, or another political campaign and candidate. Perhaps you knocked on doors, made calls from a campaign office, donated the little money you had leftover for the month, attended rallies, and argued with your neoliberal or conservative relative about the urgent moral need for Medicare For All.

Beyond that, I likely met many of you at Standing Rock, where you went to stand with indigenous people fighting for their water, land, culture, sacred sites, and sovereignty. Some of you went to Flint to help with bottled water distribution and other activism to support poisoned residents. You likely marched on the streets for George Floyd, or Breonna Taylor, or Daunte Wright, or Andrew Brown, or Jayland Walker, or any one of the long list of unarmed Black men and women who were assassinated by police. At some point, you probably protested for Medicare For All, or a Green New Deal, or saving DACA, protecting LGBTQ+ people, stopping pandemic evictions, canceling student loans debt, stopping the war machine, or against name-your-toxic-fossil-fuel pipeline being rammed through your community.

You might have shown up for a rally in solidarity with Amazon or Starbucks workers organizing for a union, perhaps you supported in-person, or online, workers on strike or conducting boycotts? Joined a tenants union? Some of you even got involved with organizations like Democratic Socialists of America [DSA], Sunrise Movement, The Debt Collective, Justice Democrats, Brand New Congress, Our Revolution, Socialist Alternative, and Poor People's Campaign.

If some, or any, of these match your experience, you are probably feeling two things: disappointed and exhausted. I know I feel both.

Disappointed at the stark fall from 2016 to now—from a progressive movement that was brimming with a hopeful feeling of possibility, of having a shot at changing our corrupt governmental system, of producing greater economic, social, and racial equality to one greatly fractured, splintered, demoralized, fighting amongst itself, largely disorganized and inactive. To a movement where people feel angry, hopeless, and cynical but don’t quite know where to place those feelings or what to do with them.

To a movement where, as we’ve all been guilty of, our vital online spaces of independent progressive outlets have descended into an endless circular firing squad—with hosts and channels mostly fixated on categorizing who is the “real” left and canceling those that are the “fake” “sell out” left—under the notion that once the so-called imposters are expelled, THEN we can truly fight the oligarchy. This digital demolition has extended to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Discord, and a variety of other platforms, where leftists who once stood together are now at each others’ throats based on who they voted for, differences in political strategy, and differences in tone or temperament. The beneficiaries of this tension: corporate CEOS, corporate consultants, Democratic Party politicians, their donors, their think tanks, their corporate NGOs, and their corporate media allies—who are thrilled to see us fighting and canceling each other rather than them.

Of course, many progressives feel disappointed in the politician that got most of you involved in the first place: Bernie Sanders. Many of you worked hard to elect him. Twice. For many, it’s bittersweet. On one hand, you appreciate Sanders for fighting the good fight for 40 years—often standing alone on a political island. For taking a stand and running against the Clinton machine when the chances of victory were initially slim. For taking another swing at it four years later.

But, objective people can also say that today, Sanders has largely abandoned his “political revolution.” He’s chosen not to engage with, or activate, his millions of supporters; not to lead them in agitating against President Biden, the corporate Democratic Party, or even the growingly fascist Republican Party. Instead, he’s taken a road of small-ball, incremental, inside baseball—where he works with his “good friend” Joe Biden and other corporate Democrats. The result has been policy crumbs that structurally changes nothing. Crumbs that keep our corrupt governmental system in place. Sure, he’s not the president. No reasonable progressive expected him to overturn the system as a single senator. But they certainly expected him to fight, to call Biden and Democrats to the carpet for abandoning the minuscule promises he made. A $15 minimum wage, a public option, banning drilling on public lands, $2,000 checks, etc.

It makes sense to be disappointed in Sanders. After all, when you excite young people and reignite long-cynical and checked-out older progressives with talk of revolution, it’s understandable for them to revolt when revolution shifts to maybe later.

Although it’s become a bit of an endangered species online these days, that kind of nuance does still exist. Where one can still appreciate what Bernie has done—thus not throwing the baby out with the bathwater—but also feel disappointed in his current inaction and lack of aggressive fight. Personally, that’s how I feel. I know many others do.

Then there’s AOC and the rest of the Squad, who many of you actively worked hard to elect. They promised to “bring the ruckus” to the Democratic Party. But the ruckus has become ample magazine covers, book deals, speaking engagements, and voting along with Nancy Pelosi. Like Bernie, they too have stood up the activist base at the political altar, choosing to operate working within the Democratic Party. They’ve rationalized doing so by arguing they are playing the “long game.” By claiming they have a strategy those outside D.C. don’t understand. By pointing to narrow or incremental wins.

Like Sanders, most reasonable progressives didn’t expect the Squad to overturn our corrupt system overnight or by themselves. No one expected them to get to Congress, snap their fingers, and grant us Medicare For All. Most simply expected them to fight; to loudly blow the whistle on the corruption of the Democratic Party, to band together as a collective voting bloc in order to block regressive, corporate-friendly legislation. To use that threat to vote as a bloc, a threat to tank the donor-desired legislation Pelosi and Co. want, in order to force real concessions for the left. To activate the base to protest in front of the White House and Congress—not because it will get us everything we want but because it is right. None of this has happened. As far as I can tell, the Squad held no protests or rallies to protest Biden:

• abandoning $15 min wage

• abandoning a public option

• abandoning $2K checks

• abandoning paid sick leave, universal pre-K, Build Back Better because…umm…Manchin/Sinema

• abandoning pledge to end drilling on public lands

• giving $32 billion more to police

• allowing Modern and Pfizer to withhold COVID vaccines—that we funded research for—from impoverished, third-world countries (which have those countries to be breeding grounds for new variants)

• trying to privatize Medicare

• blocking railroad workers from striking

• Etc, Etc, Etc

ALL of the aforementioned disappointments, ALL of the aforementioned activism and organizing and volunteering you’ve all engaged in—seemingly to no avail—have led to individual and collective exhaustion. Certainly physically, but on a greater scale mentally, psychologically, and spiritually.

I feel it and see it when I’m on the road. I feel it and see it when I speak with activists. I feel it and see it when I speak with residents in Flint who have been fighting for their lives, and justice, for nearly nine years. I feel it and see it when I talk with former campaign workers, volunteers, activists, and sources. People who, two to three years ago were determined, moving 100 miles an hour. People who were spending full-time hours volunteering for candidates or organizations they believed in. Today, they’re all but done, tossing their hands in the air, deducing the system is just too corrupt, or everyone is full of shit—including our side. There’s the simple human element; people get tired, showing up time after time, protest after protest, action after action. But year after year, nothing seems to really change.

I myself have felt this. Nearly a decade into reporting on-the-ground across the country, sometimes I feel like I’m running around in circles. Covering the same protests, covering the same actions, covering the same elections, covering the same injustice, covering the same corruption—but what really changes?

This exhaustion, this fatigue, this alternating sad, lethargic, and pissed-off feeling, is part of caring about the world. It’s part of having a stake in changing it. It might feel unhealthy, but I believe that it is entirely normal and healthy. Frankly, after all the progressive movement has been through in recent years, I would find one strange if they felt exuberant, super-energized, and ready for battle right now.

And if any of what I’m describing is how you feel, just think how Black leaders, activists, and scholars have felt fighting for centuries for freedom, civil rights, voting rights, and economic and social justice? Indigenous people who have been fighting for centuries to take back what has been stolen from them by white colonizers, suffering through murder, kidnapping, rape, and genocide. For LGBTQ+ people who have been fighting for equality in this country for decades; achieving historic wins only to have to then fight just to secure those wins. Latinos who have had to fight for decades against the dehumanizing and otherizing waged against them? The disabled, who have been fighting society’s collective disregard of them forever.

A few years back, when I was on the road covering the 2020 campaign, I was burnt the fuck out. One night in Iowa— after an excruciatingly long day covering a few nauseating Biden events— I sat down for several whiskies at a bar. Next to me was my cameraman and an older Bernie volunteer who had been involved in the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war protests, and every major progressive fight since the 1960s. Maybe it was the whisky, maybe it was the cumulative effect of the ups and downs of covering the movement for years, but I told him I was losing hope. I’ll never forget what he told me.

“The struggle is crucial to victory.” I didn’t get it at first, but as time has gone on, I think I understood what he meant. There’s no magic pill, or quick fix, for political disappointment and exhaustion. There’s no magic therapy, no one moment, to snap a stalled individual, or movement, out of lethargy. There’s no army of unknown leaders, ready to take charge and blow up the deflated balloon that is a stuck movement. There’s no final utopia or destination we’re we’ve simply won. There is an ongoing political, personal, and spiritual struggle. All of us, journalists, activists, human beings, will have to go through the cycles that go with that struggle. This is the only way to build character, to build fortitude, to build resilience, and to build perspective needed to achieve victories. Big or small. In politics or anything else in life.

I think he was telling me, what I’m telling you: you have to feel what you feel. The last seven years of this movement had been a grind. We’re all exhausted. Don’t judge or overanalyze your disappointments, exhaustion, cynicism, or anger. Listen to and feel all of it. Take the opportunity to take a step back, not necessarily tuning out politics or activism indefinitely, but allowing yourselves to take a break from it all to reset. To recharge. To get perspective.

Fortunately for me, I have been lucky enough to do just that for the last few weeks as I care for and get to know my newborn daughter, away from the disappointments and exhaustion of the progressive movement.

Sometimes, you have to take the energy and time you dedicated to electing politicians you believed in, or getting the policy or law important to you passed, or growing the organization you cared about, and shift it to your family, old or new hobbies, or if you’re in the position to — helping those worse off than you. This is not to say take a two-year hiatus from activism or political involvement; the cascade of crises we find ourselves cannot go uncared for that long.

But, ultimately, I, nor you, are any good to the progressive movement, or any movement, or each other, if we are all just one giant patchwork of burnt-out, disappointed, exhausted, cynical, and angry. None of us are good to the movement if we allow those natural feelings to make us fight each other more than the corporate plutocrats and politicians they’ve purchased.

As we head into a break for the holidays, consider whether you need a broader break for you. Although some might have fooled you into thinking otherwise, changing the corrupt government and country we live in is a marathon—not a sprint. That doesn’t mean cheering for or accepting incremental change or victories. It means shifting your perspective to realize our fight is for the long haul. There will be losses. In certain years and stretches, they will outnumber the victories. There will be steps forward, where we think we are getting closer to victory, and then setbacks. There will be breakthrough victories. There will be periods of euphoria in our movement, like 2016, and there will be periods of despair, inaction, and isolation like today.

But I believe there is hope. If I didn’t, I would not bust my ass traveling, investigating, writing, and reporting. I certainly would find something else to do professionally where I can make actual money (I’m making $40-50K less than I did five years ago). I believe there is hope based on the thousands of people I have met. The thousands I have spoken to on, and off, camera. The many I have met that are not progressive, or even into politics, but are fed up just like you and me. I believe there is hope because there are opportunities to learn from our mistakes, inside and outside of electoral politics. I believe there is hope because, as cliche, as it is, it’s true: there are way more of us than the plutocrats. Or neoliberals. Or fascists.

Take your break. Feel your anger, disappointment, and exhaustion. Check out for a while if that’s what you need.

And then rejoin the fight. Not a hollow fight against each other, based on shallow, wasteful arguments about who is pure and who is fake. But against the plutocrats, and their enablers, who have turned a country into the United Corporations of America.

Ultimately, as Anderson Silva once said, “Life is about how much you can take and keep fighting, how much you can suffer and keep moving forward.”

I am ready to keep fighting. Hopefully together.

PS:

If your reaction to reading this is to immediately open your Twitter, whip up a post, and blast this message, that’s fine and dandy. Criticism is always welcome. BUT before you do, I implore you to pause and ask yourself: why?

What purpose is being served constantly being at war with like-minded people? Sure, you might not agree with me, or others who consider themselves progressive, on all things or strategies, but what true purpose—what is the tangible positive end result that can be achieved—by progressives constantly berating each other online to the point we’re fighting each other more than neoliberal corporatists?

Your answer may be: “Well, it’s not actually in-fighting because the people I’m fighting aren’t real progressives.” If so, I kindly ask you to consider: if, for the most part, we were all standing together two to three years ago with similar policy goals, values, and desires, how can, in your mind, so many you once considered allies now be “sell-outs” or the “fake” left. Because YouTube hosts you like say so? Because, today, you aren’t in lockstep on all matters and strategies? Because a YouTube or Twitch host you like says so? Well, if this is the new standard, I hate to be the bearer of bad news: the progressive movement, or whomever you consider the “real” progressives, will be living in the political wilderness —achieving next to nothing—for the rest of our lives.

For argument’s sake, let’s say you believe it’s critically important that we rid the movement of “fake” progressives and leftists. Let’s say you’re successful. You’ve won: they are all canceled and discredited.

What then? With the fakes expelled, how will the “real” progressives leftover achieve Medicare For All, Green New Deal, banning fracking, saving the planet, overturning Citizens United, a $30 minimum wage, reviving unions in America, holding cops accountable, growing mutual aid, protecting the Internet, and more? I genuinely don’t ask this to be condescending. I ask because I have never heard a real answer. If your answer is the real progressives form a third party…great!

Sincere questions: How do you get ballot access? How do you defeat the media blackout and propaganda machine? How do you build a campaign, fundraising, digital, voter outreach, email, marketing, media, and social media infrastructures? How do you convince the most consistent, reliable, and propagandized, voting bloc in America—65 and over—to think and vote the opposite way they always have? If you have never asked or answered these questions, think it over.

There are lines in the sand where we can, and should, classify certain people political enemies rather than allies. For example, when former Medicare For All die-hards start waxing poetic about expanding “access” to healthcare. Or those who rightly demanded not taking corporate money suddenly start twisting themselves into pretzels making exceptions. But, in my view, an ongoing continuation of the progressive hunger games; the never-ending Battle Royale waged because not everyone agrees on who to vote for or not vote for in every election, or Dem Enter vs. Dem Exit, or voting vs screw voting, or protest tactics, or name-your-issue, will leave us forever…

Hungry.