Progressives seem to me desperate to understand and cater to conservatives
Huh? Do you have any examples of this?
I think you might be generalizing too much what it means to be liberal and don't really understand who is or isn't progressive, even in the context of the US.
It sounds like by liberals, you are referring to the Democratic party at large. You have to understand, the Democratic party at large is barely liberal and nowhere near progressive. Outside of a small number of progressive politicians, they're perfectly fine to waste a majority in DC doing very little because the same corporate interests that back conservatives also back them. They behave like controlled opposition. You can do your part to vote for someone who truly is progressive in a primary election.
You're correct: I conflated liberals, progressives, and Democrats. There are definitely important distinctions, but I conflated them as all being roughly on the same side when it comes to politics and dealing with the opposition party.
As for "examples", take a look at those two books I mentioned. There are many more books, and many op-ed pieces every time Democrats lose elections.
It's only relatively recently that the more progressive wing of the party has said, "Hey, rather than try to bend over backwards to attract moderate conservatives, how about you garner more enthusiasm from your left wing?" Or at least, they've been saying it for a while, but were generally dismissed. I think 2016 made the proposition more thinkable: if they will vote for the Republican candidate even if he's obviously insane, maybe a new approach is needed.
FYI, progressives did not write the books you mentioned, so they aren't good examples of showing how "Progressives seem to me desperate to understand and cater to conservatives".
You're correct. I should have said "Democrats", who are the party most closely aligned with progressives and the more progressive of the two parties, but not really very progressive. These books are written targeting centrist Democrats.
Huh? Do you have any examples of this?
I think you might be generalizing too much what it means to be liberal and don't really understand who is or isn't progressive, even in the context of the US.
It sounds like by liberals, you are referring to the Democratic party at large. You have to understand, the Democratic party at large is barely liberal and nowhere near progressive. Outside of a small number of progressive politicians, they're perfectly fine to waste a majority in DC doing very little because the same corporate interests that back conservatives also back them. They behave like controlled opposition. You can do your part to vote for someone who truly is progressive in a primary election.