Getting Old School Liberals On Board is the Key
In a healthy society, a practical progressivism and a moderate, thoughtful conservatism act to complement each other, so that moderate, useful reforms can be achieved, and social order and harmony can be maintained while gradually making things better for everyone. In this case, the progressive impulse seeks to improve things, particularly for previously overlooked, marginalized demographics, and the conservative input ensures that any reform would be practical rather than abstract, consistent with the spirit of long-standing traditions, and includes adequate compromise to satisfy the concerns of various stakeholders.
The problem with the Western political landscape right now is that, moderate, practical progressives are bullied into silence by hardline revolutionaries who want the total deconstruction of the status quo, and moderate, practical conservatives are bullied into silence by hardline reactionaries who want to turn back the clock, breaking long-standing rules and institutions if necessary. The extremists on both sides hold that it is weak to compromise, and want no less than total victory over the other side, and also over the moderate center. The dominance of the extremists and the silencing of the moderates makes compromise impossible to achieve, and leads to endless stalemate, frustration, and further polarization. The only way to get out of this situation is for moderates to reassert themselves, so that the healthy situation of practical progressives working together with moderate conservatives can be restored. Contrary to what the extremists say, it is actually the bravest thing to do to demand that everybody compromise. On the other hand, it would be an act of irresponsible cowardice for moderates on both sides to continue to let the extremists march forward unchecked.
To change things, we need to break the cycle of polarization, unwillingness to compromise, and hence further polarization somewhere. I believe the best place to start is with old school liberals. After all, things only started to become this way since postmodern critical theory began having mainstream influence in progressive politics. This is not to say that the reactionaries are not themselves as unwilling to compromise, and hence just as much a part of the problem. However, before the 'crits' came along, liberal progressivism was on a winning streak, and even many conservatives were softening their opposition to things like LGBT rights and a more secular politics. Some were even willing to accept some action on climate change. The reactionaries certainly didn't like any of this, but they were increasingly losing the argument to moderate conservatives. It wasn't until the crits sparked a backlash with their insistence on mainstreaming ideas from postmodern critical theory, and its attitude of refusing to compromise at all, that reactionaries began to win support and momentum. Right now, extreme reactionaries often argue within their own side of politics that, since the 'left' won't compromise, the 'right' shouldn't either, or else the 'left', in reference to the far-left postmodern-crit faction, would win everything. Like it or not, this argument has been picking up support on the right. The only way to put a stop to this is to bring back compromise on the progressive side of politics. This is the circuit breaker we need right now.
To win liberal, progressive-minded people back to the idea that compromise is good, we need to argue against the postmodern-critical worldview, which sees speech and discourse as power, and sees society as divided into 'oppressors' and 'oppressed' along multiple intersecting identity axes. This worldview inevitably leads to seeing those who disagree with you as evil, rather than just misguided. It also leads to seeing refusal to compromise as refusal to give into oppression and hence heroic, which is a wrong and dangerous idea. Instead, we need to bring back the old-school liberal view that refusing to compromise is either extreme, impractical or simply shooting yourself in the foot. To get progressive people to compromise for the sake of achieving practical reforms again, we need to comprehensively defeat the postmodern critical theory worldview in the marketplace of ideas.
If the argument for compromise is won on the 'progressive' side, it would also put pressure on the 'conservative' side of politics to start compromising again. When most progressives are clearly reasonable reformists who are willing to compromise, it would make uncompromising reactionaries look like the extremists they actually are. This would lead to the reactionaries losing ground, and moderate conservatives winning the arguments on the 'right' again, which would complete the restoration of the sensible center.
