I think a charitable way to understand the author is to consider they’re referring to self-described or socially described centrist and progressive politicians and their policies. And that those aren’t actually progressive.
But I think that you’re right in that the fact there’s such a divergence between what is labeled as progressive and what it actually is, is likely a result of the right wing, neolib propaganda we’ve been showered with for decades.
Would be nice if we can collapse “working classes” into a single “working class” in the minds of people but I realize that’s probably not realistic from the get to as it requires some discussion to convey and we need short slogans instead.