The following dialog is (unfortunately) based on real life. It is based on literally every conversation I've had with a neoliberal, centrist, or moderate Democrat in the past couple of years about "incremental progress." The names have been changed to protect the aggrieved (and for rhetorical effect).
Adult Sibling to Minor Child: "How's things at mom and dad's?"
Minor Child to Adult Sibling: "They fight all the time, and then I'm supposed to be grateful whenever they manage to get along for two minutes, even if the thing that they manage to stop fighting over is of literally zero interest to me."
Adult Sibling to Minor Child: "Well, you're your own person. You don't have to get drawn into their fights."
Minor Child to Adult Sibling: "Easy for you to say. You have your own apartment and a car. There's this thing called "allowance," remember?
Adult Sibling to Minor Child: "Then get a job!"
Minor Child to Adult Sibling: "I'm a kid. I'm only allowed to work up to 15 hours per week. Minimum wage. And if I work, they'll take away my allowance, and 15 hours of minimum wage work isn't enough to emancipate myself on."
Adult Sibling to Minor Child: "Well, don't worry, some day you'll be out there on your own."
Minor Child to Adult Sibling: "But that's not for years, and I hate it now. They expect me to be happy when they agree on some little thing like movie night or takeout, but they don't listen to my opinions, or they tell me I'm just a kid and I'll grow out of it."
Adult Sibling to Minor Child: "I used to have my own opinions, too, but I grew out of it and got a job and stopped whining about how life is so hard."
Minor Child: "Because the laws of our country said you could."
Adult Sibling: "Well, then you'll just have to wait until the laws say you can, too."
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Replace "Mom" and "Dad" with "Democrats" and Republicans." Replace "Minor Child" with radical, or millennial, and adult sibling with Democrat/liberal/boomer/gen-
Or the adult sibling is white and the child is black. Or straight/queer. See how it works?
Centrists and liberals always think they're the "rational adult" and anyone more "extreme" is a petulant child.
Except that it shouldn't make as much sense as it does in context unless we are in a child-like, paternalistic relationship with the political class!
Don't believe me? Try it yourself. Argue with them about "incremental reform." Torch a couple of their sacred cows.
Quote a Dr. King line they don't know, because it wasn't covered in their high school history class. I'll give you one that is just as true today as it was in 1963:
"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;' who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a 'more convenient season.'"
- Letter from a Birmingham Jail
And guess what? The same rhetorical substitution trick works on those capitalized nouns, too. I wouldn't have much room to complain if it didn't. But not much has really changed since 1963.