I am an American

Gerard Van der Leun has sounded the clarion call and we must answer. From American Digest:

The AMERICAN Party: I Am Not “Republican.” I Am Not “Conservative.” I Am Not “Alt Right.” None of These. “I am an AMERICAN.”

An American, one of the roughs, a kosmos,… No sentimentalist …. no stander above men and women or apart from them…
— Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1855)

“I am not an American, I am THE American.”
-– Mark Twain

A string of fearless hearts, on an endless ball of twine
It’s the same old train, it’s just a different time
— Same Old Train

Remember when Hillary Clinton, during her 2007 attempt to rule the world, stopped calling herself a “liberal” and rebranded herself as a “progressive?”

I do.

This relabeling from “Liberal” to “Progressive” was Clinton’s desperate attempt to crawl out from under the vast heap of crap she and all the other “liberals” had piled on themselves -– notably during her own husband’s administration. And who, when trying to run, wanted to have that old “liberal” ball and chain around her thick ankles? Not Hillary.

By 2007 “Liberal” had become so drenched in sewage liberals could only clean it through “rebranding.”

The new/old brand name chosen was ‘progressive.’

Some very clear writing there - this needs to be spread around widely as Van der Leun is the first person to articulate what I and many other people have been feeling the last few years. A bit more:

After all, who can be against “progress?” Who is not pro “pro?”

Who, that is, except the vast majority of older Americans who had seen the wreckage that the progressives’ “progress” had wrought wherever it touched down on the American landscape.

Still, the recloaking of ye olde “liberal” wolves inside of the “Progressive Sheeps’ Clothing” worked well enough with the young and stupid as well as the old and malicious.

“Progressive” caught on because it junked “liberal” but didn’t say “socialist.” At least not in so many syllables, until the Democrat candidate Clownworld of 2019.

Much more at the site - a very powerful idea whose time has come.

I am an American.