HERE'S ONE "PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRAT" AGAINST MORE IMMIGRATION (AND "FREE TRADE", TOO!!)

I see that I scored an 80% "progressive" score on the referenced Voting Index.  The score would have been 100% if my two votes to discourage further immigration had been subtracted from consideration.

My departure from asserted "progressivism", when the subject turns to unchecked immigration, could be an indicator of a widespread weakness in the modern Democratic Party. 

I believe the leadership of BOTH major political parties, which is almost uniformly pro-immigration (at least at the national level), fails to reflect the diversity of opinion about immigration that actually exists at the rank-an-file levels. 

There is MUCH more opposition to unchecked immigration, within EACH party, than the lockstep party leaderships would imply.

The virtually uniform support for "free trade" over fair trade  --  by the leaderships of both major political parties  --  is another example of the same deafness to actual opinions at the grassroots. 

For now, however, let me just stick to the issue of immigration.

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Immigration is one of those issues for which the usual "Left versus Right" standards just won't work any more. 

The traditional Right Of Center skepticism toward high levels of immigration has been overcome in the Grand Old Party  --  through the current dominance of the party by large corporations seeking tiny wages.  However, there still exists within the Republican Party a large, though also largely silenced, group of rank-and-file traditionalists who are growing increasingly restless.  Someday, perhaps soon, there could be some real bloodletting inside the GOP between those who put business interests ahead of national interests  --  and the more populist, nativist elements of the GOP, who have been eclipsed until very recently.

A bloodletting is also possible within the Democratic Party.  It's been a while since I heard prominent national Democratic leaders putting higher wages for workers ahead of "celebrating multi-culturalism". I consider it electorally dangerous (not to mention bad public policy) for the national Democratic Party's leaders to be so visibly indifferent to the needs and concerns of so many people in the party's traditional base.

So far, the Republicans have been too focused on pleasing their own megacorporate masters to fully exploit the differences within the Democratic Party. 

Still, it is no secret how lightly the "bread-and-butter" survival needs of everyday American workers have been taken by the intellectual elitists in America's supposedly "pro-labor" party.  This is a gap waiting to be exploited.

Indeed, the gap has been PARTLY exploited already.  Although taxes, crime and racial/gender preferences were the wedges used by Ronald Reagan and others  --  rather than the more recently urgent issues of immigration and trade  --  I believe many "Reagan Democrats" of elections past were rank-and-file workers who had grown tired of being treated as an afterthought, if not an embarrassment, in the same political party they had once elevated to the White House for half a century. 

Those uneasy workers are still out there, more abandoned to "globalization" than ever.  Further, the historically Democratic blue collar workers have now been joined by traditionally Republican white collar workers, worried about their layoffs and pensions in a way they never were before.  Still, NEITHER major political party is doing anything, or even PROPOSING anything, that will bring greater security or prosperity to the many worried workers of ALL social classes.

IF the Republican Party ever returns to its historic opposition to unchecked immigration and unrestrained "free trade", the national Democratic Party could be split wide open. 

VICE VERSA if the DEMOCRATIC Party ever returns to worrying about the workers of this country (including the traditionally Republican white collar workers who are now, potentially, "up for grabs").

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Some liberals and progressives  --  actually, MOST of the ones who have been elected  --  seem to see high levels of immigration as good for multi-cultural diversity (and also, perhaps, for Democratic Party voter registrations Down The Line).  However, other liberals, and some "progressives" like me, see a continuing high tide of immigration as undercutting grievously the bargaining power of the rank-and-file workers who are already here. 

Also: 

Since the No. 1 cause of urban over-development, and most other forms of environmental damage, is overpopulation, I find it hard to see how a truly committed ENVIRONMENTALIST can support a continuous rapid flow of new people into a country that is already far too crowded in many areas. 

Our pre-existing American population almost achieved "Zero Population Growth" during the past few decades, but virtually all of the otherwise available environmental and fiscal benefits were wiped out by the greatly swelled tides of new immigration.  At least 70% of America's population growth since 1960 can be attributed to immigration, with most of that immigration being unauthorized by law.

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As I said at the beginning, I score 80% progressive on the cited scale  --  but I oppose a continuation of unchecked immigration because I am sick of artificially depressed salaries, frightened by artificially constricted opportunities for upward mobility and stressed by artificially elevated levels of urban area congestion. 

From the prospects for upward mobility to the literal vistas of natural beauty, I currently see a future in which all but the most elite Americans have steadily shrinking "elbow room".  This can be changed, but government has to ACT.

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So  ...

Before you label support for unchecked immigration as a "progressive Democrat" position, I suggest you poll a number of self-identified "progressive Democrats" first. 

You just might discover that many of us want the Democratic Party (AND the Republican Party) to work for restoring a better natural environment, AND ALSO a better economic environment, for the people who are already here. 

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Like many, many Americans, I'll feel much more open to helping non-Americans when I feel more secure about MY OWN future prosperity and MY OWN future access to Nature.  I'd like to see the two major political parties do something about THAT before they ask me, and others like me, to accept more immigration. 

National leaders who shrug off public opposition to immigration fail to understand how many of the Americans who were born here feel truly terrified about their economic futures  --  as well as totally abandoned by their own government, including the leaders of both major political parties. 

At least one of the two parties needs to do something to end the fear and the suffering HERE  --  BEFORE American victims of "the global economy" are asked to accept still more competition, for both money and living space, from Somebody Else who was born Somewhere Else.

Steve Shannon at 30%?  How can this be, he was endorsed by Dem. For Va.?

Huh?

You say "Not voting progressive does not mean you are not a Democrat, instead all it suggests is the kind of Democrat you are." So I guess you would call a "Democrat" anyone who puts a "D" after his name?

Either being a "Democrat" means standing for something, or there are no Democrats left in Virginia. (And, frankly, I fear the latter may be more the case.)

Sure puts it into perspective.  All the Democrats under 50% are from mostly GOP-leaning districts or districts with few of the party's base constituents.