It’s really hard to respond to this, as none of those things really exist in a remotely popular context in American Progressivism. Freedom of speech has always existed (i.e. your protected from the government), however you were never free from the repercussions of what you said in a public setting. If you say something morally reprehensible, as a public figure, or even as an employee, you have to expect that there will be fallout.
“Struggle Sessions” was a Maoist/Red China thing back decades ago. Not sure why that was referenced…
“Enforce a conformity of ideas and opinions” I’m assuming is a reference to “cancel culture”. As a “consumer” why am I responsible for consuming content or a product made by a controversial figure or company? There’s thousands of people that are just as good, or better than someone that caught a lucky break and became famous for something. For example, Kevin Spacey, Kanye, Dixie Chicks, etc.
As far as I’m aware, there has never been a “party line” in the general population. Sure, the Democrat political party has a sort of “party line” but you can see even that’s not exactly holding up as people like Sanders, AOC, and Jasmine Crockett have been trying to break that apart for the last decade.
To be frank, none of those things remotely exist as you think, they come off more as conservative talking points about how evil “progressives” are, but in reality I’ve never once seen anything like that either on a public front or in my personal life…ever. not trying to be insulting here, but I’m worried that you have an extremely warped view of what you think “progressives” and the “left” represent.
I can sort of see what your saying, but I disagree that it’s “left authoritarianism”. Maybe I’m just an optimist lol. I can 100% agree on “purity spirals” atleast. A progressives worst enemy is another progressive at times. However. I will point out that I’ve only ever experienced discourse like that online. I think it comes from a good place, that people are trying desperately to push people further to the left as much as they can…an effort to “convert” people, if you will. I can see how people may see it as trying to be controlling. It’s like, wherea the line though?
I think it’s easier to be conservative in a sense because your allied to essentially “stop the left”, but for the left it’s never been about “stopping the right” it’s about how to we make x,y,z better. I think we lose ourselves when other people are like 18 steps ahead, and arguing for things that are so far left that it sort of screws up any sort of core, party message.
I think the best that a progressive can do in times like these is to have humility and be humble. There’s so many things that need to happen that it’s impossible to have a stance or understanding on literally everything. Just because people don’t protest or push for the things someone else supports or understands, doesn’t mean that they aren’t progressive enough.
I don’t think your wrong that our messaging needs a lot of work though.