Progressivism at a Crucial Turning Point

Progressivism is at a decisive moment. In Chile, as in the world, it faces a reality where right-wing ideas have gained ground in sectors where previously justice, social movements, and collective organization supported the left. This is not just about an electoral defeat or popularity: what is at stake is the ability to provide real answers in a time marked by uncertainty, anxiety, and constant transformation.

We are living through a new historical cycle. The promises of unlimited growth, guaranteed stability, and social contracts from another century are no longer sufficient to address citizens’ demands and anxieties. Technology, climate change, migration, inequality, insecurity, and corruption have reshaped the priorities and mood of our societies. Simultaneously, they have undermined the value of our liberal democracies as the system through which to seek answers to our challenges. In this context, it is not surprising that many citizens seek certainty in conservative or authoritarian discourses. They want to feel seen, protected, and heard.

Therefore, today it is not enough to repeat the old formulas of progressivism. We need to build a new one: with firm roots in our history of struggles for equality, social justice, and democracy, but with an eye on the dilemmas of the present. A progressivism that speaks not only to the convinced but also to those who feel excluded from the left, to those looking to populism because they feel that there—at least—someone cares about their fears and concrete experiences.

This progressivism must also address a growing internal risk: those on the left who offer promises tinged with nostalgia and/or without serious plans behind them. This only deepens frustration and disillusionment. Citizens need change, yes, but also certainty. They need to know there is a roadmap to improve their lives without putting coexistence, stability, or democracy at risk.

In Chile, this Sunday we have a concrete opportunity to move in that direction. Carolina Tohá precisely represents this vision: a modern left that does not shy away from the challenges of this time, that understands the need to prioritize the agenda of security, to combine growth with shared well-being, and that seeks to unite rather than divide. Tohá does not offer empty phrases or magic recipes. She offers experience, seriousness, and a deep commitment to dialogue, coexistence, and common-sense progress.

Voting for Carolina this Sunday is betting on a progressivism that knows it cannot govern without majorities, that cannot transform without responsibility, and that cannot listen only to those who think alike. It is betting on a politics that embraces the diversity of modern Chile and builds a future from that complexity, not against it. Our country has the resources, capacities, and institutions to take a decisive step toward development. Achieving this fundamentally depends on the quality of politics; on who we place at the head of the country in the coming years. It relies on a leadership that mobilizes Chile’s capacities toward a shared goal.

We want a modern progressive project for Chile, with feet on the ground and eyes held high, that calls for a majority. That is what today’s primary on Sunday, June 29, is for: to build a broad force, to create unity in diversity. Nevertheless, Carolina proposes something grander: that starting tomorrow we embark on the greatest unity operation we have known in a long time. Unity with those who competed in this primary; unity with those who did not enter the primary; unity with skeptics; unity with the indifferent; unity with those democrats who have distanced themselves and taken other paths.

This is a difficult time, but it is also a fertile one. In the midst of disaffection, there is still a search: for a politics that combines hope with responsibility, and conviction with capability. Carolina Tohá embodies that possibility. And Chile can once again be the place where progressivism reinvents itself.