Who are the progressive left, and more importantly, who are we?

The progressive left (or closet Marxists) are made up of elites, hard-core activists, and dupes.

It is important to understand that progressivism (as Hillary defines it) is collective statism. They (the elites) know better how to run our lives, if given expanded power, than “we the people.” They seek to consolidate more and more power to the state, in order to create an egalitarian utopia (made in their image).

Straight up – progressive elites are evil. As a Christian, I maintain a belief (as many religions) that there are two, diametrically opposed forces in the world – good and evil. Good calls me (as a Christian) to love God and to love my neighbor. For progressives, even religious progressives, the state is god. Good works, imposed by the state, represents the manifestation of righteousness. In their scheme some are punished so that others benefit, but that is not factored. Equality is benevolence. Empowering the state to level societal inequities is righteousness.    
 
Hard-core activists are front-line foot soldiers, today referred to as social justice warriors (SJW). These SJW’s are aggrieved by their circumstances, often (almost always) created by aforementioned progressive elites. Progressive elites though, have done a masterful job in convincing these SJW’s that “they”, the statist have their best interest at heart. Equality is sold, not as opportunity, but as outcomes.
 
All told, the elites and hard-core activists represent a very tiny segment of society. A small percentage, of a small percentage of the progressive democrat constituency.
 
Which brings us to the dupes, stooges, the ill-informed. This segment is not evil, by nature, just deceived. They have been deceived in part by their ignorance. Anyone watching a Jimmy Kimmel “street interview”, or previously Jay Leno, must come away wondering how people can be so uninformed. We all have been deceived though, in some manner or another. How many of us have unwittingly traded some degree of freedom for comfort?
 
It is easy to want to take sides in this battle, and make no mistake, it is a battle, but we too often allow this fight to bring us to a place (in our hearts) that is no better than the evil that we are fighting against. We see #BlackLivesMatter activists tear down a city center, and it hardens our hearts towards our black neighbors. We see heinous crimes committed by (some) blacks against (some) whites and it is hard not to ascribe feelings of anger towards an entire segment of the black community. Or, conversely, we see some injustice committed by [some] white person, or police officer against a person of color, and want to ascribe evil to all white persons, or all law enforcement.  
 
This is truly not who we are. We are better than this. We, those created in God’s image (which would be all of us), need to love our neighbor, as ourselves. We need to treat people individually, with love and compassion. We need to shine the light of truth on a darkened world, and invite those who would seek the light to find it.
 
We must however, continue to fight against those who would willingly embrace darkness and the principalities of evil.