Is Andy Beshear the progressive darling of the Bluegrass State?
The short answer is no, the longer answer is also no but with more words in-between
Matt Bevin finally conceded the election last month in what felt like 20 years had passed. A recanvassing was held across the state and the numbers still held up: Andy Beshear beat Bevin by about 5,000 votes. I thought it was always going to be a close election for the Kentucky governorship and truthfully I thought Bevin would win by about as small of a margin Beshear did.
It’s not surprising Bevin wanted a recanvass, but he did it by implying every step along the way that his loss was caused by some widespread conspiracy of voter fraud. It was all such ignorant, bullshit theater and even some woman from Infowars, which is headed by a guy who said the kids murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary were fake and the parents were just actors, injected herself into it. The whole ordeal was stupid and exhausting and headed by “two moms” who all of a sudden were really into election security once Bevin lost.
Maybe voter fraud was easier for his ego to take than the simple truth that he’s an asshole and people don’t like him.
Or rather, he was an asshole to the wrong kinds of people. Namely people who work and people who vote. He did get away with being an asshole to a lot of other people. One time he called a longtime political reporter at the Courier Journal a “pepping Tom” and no one really cared. Politicians can get away with being assholes to certain groups of people.
There’s only enough room for one guy to act like Donald Trump and right now that’s Donald Trump so Matt Bevin just ran out of juice on that front. Plus whereas Trump can spout all the vitriol he wants on the national stage and have it largely benefit him, it’s not the same for a governor because the roles of the two offices are different.
I’m still going to keep a close eye on Matt Bevin because he’s a slippery little guy. I’ll only rest easy once he’s back up in the northeast making bells again. I learned a lot of people didn’t know that before Matt Bevin was governor he ran in the Republican primary against Mitch McConnell in 2014 and before that he was (still is) president of the Bevin Brothers bell company up in Connecticut.
The bell foundry was (allegedly) struck by lighting and burned down in 2012 and it gave us a great quote from our future governor.
“Bevins have been making bells on this spot for 180 years. I'm a Bevin and I'm on this spot and I'm going to make some bells.”
I think the pure simplicity and earnest nature of his quote really makes it stand out to me. He’s just a Bevin and you know what Bevins do? Bevins make bells.
One of the more famous bells made by the Bevin Brothers is the bell used at the New York Stock Exchange.
Anyway, Andy Beshear is officially going to be the governor of Kentucky. 🎊🎊🎊
Kentucky electing a Democrat governor isn’t new, no matter what they tell you in the New York Times or on NPR. Kentucky has had six Republican governors in like the past century. And this doesn’t translate into Trump or McConnell being in trouble here in the Bluegrass, but look if you wanna read more specifically on all that click here.
On election night, a friend of mine said Andy Beshear is a progressive Democrat and I was being disingenuous by dunking on all the national reporters who were shocked that KY elected a Democrat governor. First, of course I’m gonna dunk on them because they’re ignorant of politics in this state and only parachute in every once in a blue moon to impart their knowledge onto the rest of us.
That got me thinking, is Andy Beshear a progressive? Well if you’re comparing him to his dad former Governor Steve Beshear, who was against gay marriage no matter what his memoir may say, then yeah you could call Andy a progressive in that sense when compared to his dad; the younger Beshear does support gay marriage.
Electorally speaking, however, gay marriage isn’t the political litmus test it used to be because a majority of Americans now support it. What used to be a cultural touchstone for conservatives has gradually faded into the background. That’s not to say LGBTQ people in the U.S. don’t still face a plethora of issues; as you read this, Donald Trump is willfully (maliciously) rolling back the progress made in recent years for LGBTQ rights.
While the gay marriage “debate” is no longer center stage, other adjacent issues have filled the space.
In KY, for instance, more and more cities are locally passing Fairness Ordinances to prevent LGBTQ discrimination in housing and the workplace. Because in KY, and a lot of other places, people can be denied housing or flat out fired for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender.
What’s Andy Beshear think about a statewide Fairness Ordinance? He gave a pretty solid non-answer when asked a similar question by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.
“As attorney general, I’ve been a voice for the voiceless and ensured everyone is equally protected under the law I’ve sworn to uphold…As governor, I will continue to do the same. Discrimination is wrong, and I’ll be a governor for every Kentucky resident.”
Whew, really moving stuff right there.
Before delving down the rabbit hole of Andy Beshear’s policies and stances and what not, let’s examine what it means to be progressive.
What does it mean to be a progressive?
Through the lens of political philosophy, progressivism is the support for or advocacy of social reform. From a Wikipedia blurb: it is based on the idea of progress, which asserts that advancements in science, technology, economic development and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition.
In the United States, progressivism rose as a political reform movement during the Progressive Era.
Progressivism began as a social movement and grew into a political movement…they were people who believed that the problems society faced (poverty, violence, greed, racism, class warfare) could best be addressed by providing good education, a safe environment, and an efficient workplace.
The goals of progressivism when it first came onto the scene aren’t drastically different from some of goals it espouses today: there’s an extreme concentration of wealth among a tiny elite and this small group of people exert enormous economic and political power; progressives saw this as wildly irresponsible and wanted to reform the system which allowed this to happen. The system progressives were railing against back then came about as a result of the Gilded Age, an era of rapid economic expansion where the concentration of wealth became more bloated.
Progressives stress(ed) collective responsibility, a reconstruction of American politics, and a revamping of governing institutions.
Many of the political organizations that have played significant roles in American democracy from the 20th century—labour unions, trade groups, and professional, civic, and religious associations—were founded during the Progressive era, according to Britannica.
Jacob Weindling argues in Paste Magazine that today’s progressive vs liberal debate (more on that in a bit) comes down to economics:
A key tenet of classical liberalism is that it endorses the capitalist notion that profit equals value creation, since it makes the correct assertion that profit must have value since it is literally creating something from nothing. The degree to which profit motives should be maximized is a central debate in liberal thought, but the fundamental notion that businesses exist in order to create profit is widely agreed upon amongst liberalism.
Being dissatisfied with the current economic status quo doesn’t make you a progressive. America is a capitalist nation, but the capitalism we have experienced from 1980 to today is different from the capitalism America experienced from 1950 to 1980, etc…what makes you a progressive is essentially being opposed to the central tenets of capitalism, and challenging the assertion that the best way to create maximum economic value is to maximize profits.
Those more in the liberal camp, think Elizabeth Warren, has embedded her policies not in directly challenging capitalism but making tweaks here and there and working within the existing capitalist framework. Her student debt plan, for example, sets a numbers of thresholds and qualifiers so people with student debt can be eligible to get X amount of debt forgiven.
Whereas those more in the progressive camp, Bernie Sanders for instance, bases his policies more in terms of railing against capitalism and the private market. He wants industries like medicine and housing to not be shackled to the motive of making a profit. Sanders’ student debt plan, in contrast, wants to completely wipe out student debt; his ideas of education aren’t tethered to a capitalist notion that education should be the massive profit machine it is today.
Bernie Sanders at a rally in New Orleans, Louisiana, July 26, 2015. Wikimedia Commons
Now there are a lot of other distinctions that can be made to distinguish liberals from progressives, and foreign policy highlights these differences quite well.
A lot of the debate between who gets to call themselves a progressive, as compared to a liberal, leftist, socialist, etc. really comes down to America’s ever changing political vocabulary.
Ever since Ronald Reagan branded “liberal” as a dirty word in American politics, Democrats have sought to seek a word to replace liberal in the political lexicon. I don’t really think they’ve had much luck because nowadays even more pejorative forms of liberal exist like “triggering the libs” or “libtard.”
At one point, the Democratic party was the party of slavery and Republicans the party of anti-slavery and civil rights. Looking at the Republican party today, the party with a white nationalist at its helm, it’s completely unrecognizable to what sometimes is still referred to as the party of Lincoln.
This constant, ever changing shift with America’s political vocabulary makes it easy for people to just throw out words like progressive and liberal for the sake of electoral politics. Kamala Harris has called herself a “progressive prosecutor,” but those left of her have pushed back on this. In cases like hers, saying she’s a progressive may come down to what polls the best and not necessarily what a person’s policies reflect.
Writing last spring in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Professor Sean Wilentz makes a compelling argument for why liberal and progressive aren’t synonymous and why those differences matter.
Liberals—and this truly is a matter of historical record—have never been blind to capitalism’s flaws and excesses and cruelties. They see enormous openings for exploitation, thievery, favoritism, monopoly, spoliation, corruption, and plutocracy, all of which undermine the system of innovation and opportunity. They also believe that these economic ills can be politically corrected.
…progressive politics has commonly fallen into condemning liberalism and the liberal tradition as a shill for capitalist injustice and inequality, the palliative that blocks real social change…Progressives are generally hostile to capitalism. The system itself, for progressives, is not simply rigged, it is defined by its exploitation and its dysfunctions.
Wilentz takes his argument a step farther saying that progressives are “emphatically anti-liberal” and deep down they “harbor the hope that one day, perhaps through some catastrophic event, American capitalism will indeed be replaced by socialism…”
Now there’s a lot of other political terminology I could throw in here like democratic socialism, populism, nationalism, etc. but that would probably make an already confusing explanation even more of a head scratcher.
So who gets to call themselves a progressive? Everyone and no one and maybe words just don’t have meaning anymore.
Here’s something I read from Conor Lynch that I think helps to clear up the progressive/liberal label into something that actually matters, which is what politicians are fighting for:
As more Democratic politicians have come to call themselves progressive, the term, which implies a deep commitment to progress, has lost some of its meaning. All of the candidates in the Democratic primaries claim to fight for progress, but the real question that needs to be asked is what kind of progress they’re actually fighting for.
I’ve been thinking what my own definition of progressivism means. I think, and this also has historical roots as well, being a progressive means you’re not regressing, but I don’t think that’s a good enough framework to operate in today.
Say a person is elected into office and they spend all their time trying to enact their policy of taking candy from babies. They want every baby in America to be robbed of their candy. While in office, this person succeeds and all the candy in the country has been taken from the babies.
The next election comes up and the Baby Candy Stealer is on the ballot for reelection. The voters aren’t too thrilled about stealing candy from babies so they elect a person who says they aren’t going to steal candy from babies anymore.
Anti Baby Candy Stealer wins the election and the candy stealing stops. Hooray! But then what? Anti Baby Candy Stealer has stopped stealing the candy, but they don’t think giving the candy back to the babies is economically viable. And Anti Baby Candy Stealer certainly isn’t too keen on providing more nutritious options for babies to eat then candy.
When compared to Baby Candy Stealer, Anti Baby Candy Stealer could be seen as a progressive because no more candy is being taken from babies, but that really just maintains the now existing status quo; the fact that the babies no longer have candy remains unchanged even though the letter next to the person’s name in office has.
Anti Baby Candy Stealer isn’t regressing to a policy of also taking every baby’s pacifier, but it’s not like they’re doing anything to help the babies either.
For me, I define progressivism as enacting change that helps those at the bottom, those who are in need and are often maligned and oppressed by this country’s existing power structures. To me that means, primarily, the working class. And that encompasses a wide swath of people that’s not solely white people but also Black people and other people of color.
Qualms have been raised, both in the historical record and more contemporarily, about how a Marxist theory of the working class handles the area of race, which is to say people often argue that it misses the point entirely if not purposefully omits it. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor makes a great argument as to why that’s not the case, but it’s easy to see how that perception has come about.
In addition to how I think progressivism should enact change to help the working class, I’d also throw in how it should help other oppressed groups, which more often than not cross-over with the working class: Black people, immigrants, people of color (broadly defined as that is), LGBTQ people, women, gender non-conforming people, impoverished people, etc.
Given the views of progressivism outlined in the historical record and by also looking at Beshear versus some of his progressive contemporaries, I think it’s a fair assumption to say Andy Beshear does not think capitalism is rigged or defined by its exploitation and dysfunctions.
Which also brings me back around to something I talked about at the outset: the purpose of a governor. I think a governor’s role is chiefly attracting businesses to their state to make sure the lights stay on and the schools don’t close. That then begs the question if it’s even possible to have a governor who thinks the capitalist system is dysfunctional if their entire function is to primarily work in that framework. I’d wager to say it is possible, but we’re not going to see it in Andy Beshear.
What’s important to remember in all this is that words do matter, how politicians describe their plans, policies, bills, etc. matters. But what matters more than the name politicians bestow upon themselves are the actions they take. Or as the old adage goes: if you’re gonna talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk.
Is Andy Beshear Kentucky’s Anti Baby Candy Stealer?
Yes, Andy Beshear is the Anti Baby Candy Stealer of the Bluegrass; in the sense that he was largely elected in a rebuke to Matt Bevin and Bevin’s stances on public pensions (teachers being the most vocal) and likely his stance on healthcare (i.e. his Medicaid work requirements). (also the Libertarian Party had an impact)
Andy Beshear’s Facebook page
Beshear’s victory is, contrary to national belief, not a #BlueWave and it’s not necessarily a rebuke of Trump or the current impeachment inquiry. New York Times reporters are probably legally required to tie every little thing back to impeachment or they’d be out of a job.
Every other constitutional office that was on the ballot this election went to Republicans, Kentucky even elected a Republican Attorney General for the first time in about 80 years (and the state’s first Black AG as well).
Here’s some exit poll data to drive the point home:
16% of self-described Republicans backed Beshear over Bevin
Beshear won Democrats (94-6) and had an advantage with independents (58-31)
15% of people who have a favorable view of President Trump backed Beshear
The AG and secretary of state races gained more Republican votes than Bevin did for governor
In Beshear’s defense, I don’t think he’s ever referred to himself as a progressive, probably because 1) he knows calling himself that would’ve welcomed more right-wing smears and 2) he probably doesn’t consider himself one.
There was no shortage, however, of people posturing online (as I myself often do) calling Andy Beshear a progressive.
During the election season, there was no shortage of right-wing attacks on Beshear trying to connect him with the more nationally visible progressives and liberals like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who are likewise vilified on the right. Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren were also thrown into the mix for good measure.
The implication here was that Beshear is a radical socialist, commie, dirty liberal who was gonna change the Kentucky flag to a hammer and sickle. When in reality, he’ll probably govern in a moderate fashion.
To Beshear’s credit, he says he’s going to make good on his promise to halt Bevin's Medicaid work requirement plan, which Beshear has said would throw upwards of 100,000 of people off the Medicaid program. I can’t stress enough just how hell bent Matt Bevin was on getting rid of Medicaid entirely if he didn’t get his way.
There’s also a good possibility Beshear will bring back Kynect, Kentucky’s state-based Affordable Care Act exchange program. Kynect was super popular and also provided a great fog for people who didn’t realize it was the ACA, or more often scoffed at as “Obamacare.”
Beshear halting Bevin’s work requirements is a great thing, it’s absolutely fantastic. But the ACA has its own litany of problems. Even despite those problems, Republicans in Congress have never come up with their own solution for all the times they keep trying to repeal and replace it.
Aside from the work requirement Bevin pushed, Beshear will most likely keep running healthcare in the state as it has been (with the possibility of Kynect coming back). Beshear’s healthcare plan outlined guaranteed coverage of preexisting conditions and he’s said he will ban lifetime limits from insurers, as well as require them to cover mental health care and substance abuse treatment.
To me, his healthcare plan reads as simply making sure the ACA is held together as best as possible, which that’s important but his plan doesn’t outline much of what else he would do with Kentucky’s healthcare as governor.
His section on lowering the cost of prescription drugs, which is constantly rising, proposes the creation of a Prescription Drug Affordability Board. He specifically names a board recently established in Maryland as an example of what Kentucky could do. Worth noting, however, is the law in Maryland only applies to health plans that serve employees of the state government and of county and city governments.
Adding to the progressive excitement around Beshear is that he often refers to healthcare as a “basic human right.” Which I mean sure that’s nice and all, but yeah no shit.
But here’s the thing, when you compare Beshear’s “basic human right” healthcare rhetoric with Bevin trying to impose a work requirement on people for healthcare or they’ll die, of course Beshear would come out smelling like a progressive.
When staring down the headlights of “pretty much still the ACA” and “work or die,” it’s not too surprising the former would win.
You wanna talk progressive healthcare reform? Democrat Governor Brereton Jones proposed universal healthcare in Kentucky during his 1991-95 term. If Andy Beshear in his term as Governor of Kentucky proposes universal healthcare I will eat my entire shoe. Doesn’t matter which shoe, but I will eat it entirely.
I think Beshear getting his progressive label comes solely from his stark contrasts with Bevin’s more radically regressive policies.
Reproductive rights is another good indicator of this. Bevin has closed down all but one abortion clinic in Kentucky and even then he fought tooth and nail to close it down too. Add in the fact that Bevin is generally hostile to reproductive rights, signing several bills restricting said rights and targeting Planned Parenthood a number of times.
Bevin’s legal playbook of fighting reproductive rights and access to abortion isn’t new, it’s playing itself out all over the country in an attempt to see which state makes it to the Supreme Court first and ultimately overturns Roe v. Wade.
Beshear’s big progressive chops for reproductive rights comes from the fact that he says he supports Roe v. Wade and a women’s right to choose. I know in this political hellscape we find ourselves in taking that stance seems like the most applause worthy thing, but it shouldn’t be and also damn things are bleak.
Beshear was endorsed by NARAL Pro-Choice America, but he was also endorsed by them the day before the Democratic primary election. To me that reads that NARAL gave an endorsement to a Democrat because they had to and felt Beshear was the best option to win in the long-term against Bevin, especially compared to Rocky Adkins and Adam Edelen. Even Planned Parenthood didn’t endorse Beshear so much as give him an informal nod.
I don’t expect Beshear to really focus on expanding reproductive rights during his term, nor do I really expect him to try and reverse the policies Bevin enacted, let alone try and make any progress on that front.
Now at this point, I’ve been coming back to this particular post for over a week and I’m getting tired of writing so I’m gonna do a lightning round of Beshear’s stances with varying degrees of explanation as to why I don’t think they should be classified as progressive.
Beshear has pledged to automatically restore voting rights to more than 140,000 Kentuckians who have completed sentences for non-violent felony convictions.
Kentucky is in an extreme minority when it comes to disenfranchisement for felons. Kentucky is one of two states that permanently bans those with criminal convictions from voting. This isn’t progressive, this is playing catch-up with the rest of the country. I would argue a more progressive stance would be to restore voting rights across the board for felons, not just those convicted of non-violent offenses. Take it a step further and amend the Kentucky Constitution and strip the governor of this power to be the sole arbiter of restoring voting rights.
Beshear wants to legalize medical marijuana
Legalize marijuana outright and also decriminalize it. There are far too many people, disproportionally Black people at that, serving time on low level drug charges like marijuana possession.
I cannot find anything about Beshear’s stance on criminal justice reform
It’s not mentioned on his campaign website or other websites that compile politician’s stances. The one instance I was easily able to find was a passing mention from Beshear in a WFPL interview. Maybe his stance on voter restoration is his criminal justice stance, but that’s not good enough. Kentucky’s county jails are overcrowded and the state prisons are continuing to incarcerate people at higher and higher rates. So what is Beshear going to do about it? Not a damn clue, but he can start with what the ACLU is proposing. (or he can just abolish prisons)
When the hell did Beshear come out in support of the Green New Deal?
I keep reading that Beshear campaigned on a just transition from coal and on the Green New Deal, but that’s news to me. To my recollection, this was the first Kentucky election in a long time I can remember that coal was not more than a passing thought. A Green New Deal is needed as we try to mitigate the absolute worst dangers of climate change and to help coal miners as increasingly more mines shut down. Beshear didn’t join Bernie Sanders, a big proponent of the GND, when he visited Kentucky and has responded in general platitudes when asked about the program specifically. Beshear’s progressive chops on climate change come from the fact he believes, like a normal person should, that climate change is real; compare him to Bevin who doesn’t believe in climate change and rails against teenagers trying to ensure they have a viable planet and again Beshear of course looks to be the more progressive of the two.
In conclusion or something
Is Andy Beshear a progressive? No, and I’m sticking with that answer until I’m proven wrong and have to eat my shoe. He can’t be labelled a progressive just because Matt Bevin was so exceptionally regressive and a huge asshole. Beshear can, however, earn that title, if he so chooses, because of his actions as governor.
Beshear was not elected because of his so-called progressive stances, but largely in spite of them. Personal anecdote here, but I know a lot of people from back home who refused to vote for Beshear because of his pro-choice stance despite the fact that they absolutely hated Bevin, and I think a lot of people shared that sentiment.
Look at the primary election results for a clearer understanding of this. Rocky Adkins swept eastern Kentucky and was within six percentage points of Beshear in the primary. It wasn’t surprising Adkins carried eastern Kentucky like he did, but his gains in other parts of the state were a surprise given he didn’t really campaign statewide. Rural Kentucky voters favor a Democrat like Adkins, which is to say one who is anti-abortion and pretty much mirrors a Republican.
Perry Bacon Jr., writing for WFPL, makes note of the growing urban-rural divide in Kentucky, which is playing out all across the country and which largely serves to benefit Republicans. In 2007, the elder Steve Beshear lost 28 counties, winning the state’s other 92. In his 2011 reelection bid, he again lost only 28 counties.
Andy Beshear flipped that: he won only 23 counties and lost the other 97. And keep in mind that while Republican scare mongers made Andy Beshear out to be a liberal, progressive, commie, hippy that he really just ran a pretty middle of the road, moderate campaign. Worth noting again, Beshear still only barely won.
Had Beshear run this race as more of a progressive he may have seen better results. After all, Bernie Sanders nearly won Kentucky’s Democratic primary election back in 2016 (by a smaller margin than what Beshear won over Bevin at that).
Yes, it’ll be an uphill battle for Beshear with a Republican controlled House and Senate and Kentucky’s other constitutional offices lined with Republicans. But maybe if the Kentucky Democrat Party didn’t run such god awful candidates he’d be in a better position. And also maybe if electoral politics didn’t force us in this mindset of having to compromise or get nothing done then we’d all be better off.
While it’ll likely be tough for Beshear, that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t stick to some principles and fight for them for the betterment of Kentuckians. That’s what we all deserve.