What Is a Progressive?

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What Is a Progressive?

by Liviana (Giovanna Laine)

For the past two and a half years, the term "Progressive" has been rather frequently used in American political discourse.  But what is a Progressive, exactly?  This is a very good question, because three very distinct groups currently apply the label to themselves in the United Stats, and an historical use also exists.  What is this historical usage, what are the three groups currently claiming the title, and how do these three groups differ from one another?

Beginning in the 1890s and continuing until at least 1917 (some historians argue that it extended to 1920 or even into the 1920s), the "Progressive Era" in the United States can best be characterized as a period of often populist efforts to promote Reform.  This reform was attempted in response to political corruption going back to at least the Boss Tweed leadership of Tammany Hall, as well as issues arising from industrialization and urbanization.  What "reform" meant to any given person was a rather subjective matter, just as it remains today.

As a result of this subjectivity, members of various political parties applied the label "Progressive" to themselves, or had it applied to them by others.  The People's Party (also known as the Populist Party) was established in 1891, and was perhaps the first organized manifestation of the Progressive movement, which would therefore trace its roots to the Populist movement;  the two movements did share at least one ideal, that of a more direct democratic system than was then in operation.  By 1896, most of the members of the People's Party had merged with the Democratic Party, although a few held out till 1908.  Some Democrats and Republicans likewise embraced the Progressive movement and name, and in 1912, a former Republican President, Teddy Roosevelt, formed the Progressive Party (sometimes called "the Bull Moose Party").  By 1918, most members of this party had joined (or returned to) the Republican Party, with some joining the Democratic Party, and the Progressive Bull Moose Party was no more.  Woodrow Wilson had co-opted much of the platform of the Progressive Party for his 1916 re-election bid, and this, coupled with his slogan "He kept us out of war," won him the election.  He never attempted to implement any of the platform he had stolen from the Progressives.

In addition to varying party affiliations, various ideological perspectives with their several agendas were associated, whether by self-identification or the view of outsiders, with the Progressive movement.  Social attitudes which might today be called "Liberal," "Moderate," and "Conservative" were all associated with the label "Progressive."  Some advocated for an end to tariffs and excise taxes in favor of a tax on corporate income;  others wanted to see this also extended to personal income.  Some sought to have the gold standard on which the currency was based replaced by a silver standard, and to see the banks more regulated.  Still others wanted the right to vote to be extended to women.  Some pushed for prohibition of alcohol.  Some called for modernization through technology and science.  Some advocated for greater labor union activity.  Foundations with charitable goals were established.  Improved transportation and education were effected to benefit rural America.  The "Muckrakers" were investigative journalists and novelists who exposed corruption, scandals, and waste in both government and the corporate world, leading to calls for various reforms in both sectors.  Some even regarded Jim Crow laws and eugenics as somehow "Progressive," while African-Americans set about working on their own Progressive reforms involving better education, legal activism to secure equal rights, and assorted other things.  Various other reforms were also encouraged.

In 1921, many Progressive goals had been achieved, and the Progressive movement began to fade.  Some regard the modernization and mechanization of industry in the '20s to be Progressive, but at any rate, the wider reform movement had settled down, and the first stirrings of an economic laissez-faire attitude had begun.  Policies and laws based on the economic aspects of what we now call "Classical Liberalism" were taken to unsustainable extremes, with trickle-down economics deregulation of various industries, anti-labor efforts, a "hard money" approach to currency (leading to less currency in circulation and thus increasing unemployment), risky lending by banks (which encouraged bubble economies), rampant speculation in the stock market, and so on, promoted by the very pro-business Republicans including presidents Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover (who infamously preached "Rugged Individualism" as an anti-solidarity message).  These laws and policies favoring big business and banking, and seeking to restrict the efficacy of collective bargaining and the power of labor unions, were among the main factors which resulted in the Great Depression.  In 1924, Robert M. LaFollette, Sr. had established a new Progressive Party, which continued until 1934.  His 1924 run for President was endorsed by the American Federation of Labor (AFL, which later merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, to form the AFL-CIO) and the Socialist Party of America.

With the stock market crash and the dawn of the Great Depression in 1929, attention was shifted to economic concerns, as should be expected.  President Hoover's efforts had failed to address the situation to anyone's satisfaction.  Progressive Republican Senators from western states urged him to take steps which might have had some effect, but his pro-business views led to him dismissing their calls and moving further to the economic Right.  In 1932, another Roosevelt was elected President, and among his supporters were the same Progressive Republican Senators who had been ignored by Hoover, while other, Conservative, Progressive Republicans opposed his platform.  In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in as the 32nd President of the United States.  He set about implementing "the New Deal" and espoused what could be regarded as Progressive social attitudes.  His Vice President, John N. Garner, a Southern Conservative Democrat, opposed many of FDR's policies, and broke completely from the President in 1937.  When FDR won re-election in 1940, he named his Henry A. Wallace as his new Vice President.  Wallace had been a Progressive Republican, and didn't join the Democratic Party until 1936, having been appointed Secretary of Agriculture by FDR in 1933 and having supported he New Deal from its beginning.  The Democratic National Convention in 1944 refused him the nomination for Vice President and instead nominated Harry D. Truman.  FDR then named Wallace as Secretary of Commerce, in which position he continued under Truman's presidency until September of 1946.  Henry Wallace then became the editor of The New Republic, and in 1948, formed yet another Progressive Party, running for President as the nominee thereof.

It was sometime between 1946 and 1948 that what I call the "Modern Progressive" movement became a distinct perspective in American politics, and Henry Wallace and his Progressive Party of 1948 were part of this movement.  His platform included national health insurance, welfare expansion, desegregation, nationalization of energy, an end to the Truman Doctrine and the Cold War, and conciliation with the Soviet Union.  The Communist Party USA endorsed Wallace for President, and he refused to disavow their endorsement.  In 1952, however, Wallace began to oppose Communism, and specifically what was being done in its name in the USSR, having learned of what life was like inside the Soviet Union from Gulag survivor Vladimir Petrov.

Top Row (L-R):  Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Henry Wallace.

Wallace also supported the re-election of Republican President Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower in 1956.  The Republican Party platform of 1956 was surprisingly Progressive, even by today's standards, and certainly more Progressive than the Democratic Party platform of 2016 (in spite of claims that the 2016 Democratic platform was "the most Progressive platform ever in the history of the Democratic Party," which, even if that claim were true, would be a sad indictment of how far the Democrats have strayed from the platform of FDR).

For "Modern Progressives," the meaning of "Progressive" is largely intended to refer to an attitude toward change in society (and requires support for reform and progress).  The Social Liberals also arose around the same time as the Modern Progressives, and are now generally called simply "Liberals," while the Liberals of the past became known as "Classical Liberals."  Liberal, like Progressive, Moderate, Radical, Conservative, Ultraconservative, and Reactionary, are terms properly reserved for attitudes toward social and/or cultural change.  However, "Progressive" has also come to imply some economic views as well, Modern Progressives typically falling somewhere Left of Center on he economic scale, embracing either Let Social Democracy (Social Democracy is Centrist, with some forms falling a little to the Right of Center, and some a little to the Left) or some form of Socialism, while rejecting the extreme Leftism of Marxist Socialism.  During the Vietnam War, Modern Progressives opposed the war, while Social Liberals supported it, most of them being Democrats by the time and the war prosecuted by Democratic Presidents JFK and LBJ (as well as later by the Republican President Richard M. Nixon).  Progressive grassroots activists helped secure the Democratic nomination for President in 1972 for George McGovern, who was, among other things, an anti-war and pro-ecology candidate.

Following McGovern's defeat by Nixon in the '72 election (a defeat assisted by some establishment Democrats), the Democratic Party in 1973 revised their charter and bylaws to prevent another grassroots Progressive nomination, to avoid any grassroots reform of the party, and to stack the deck against any grassroots takeover of the party, transforming the "Democratic" Party into a top-down organization an ensuring that those in power in the party would be likely to retain their party positions.  The Democratic Party has not nominated a single Progressive for President since, although Progressives have continued to vie for the nomination, notable examples being Dennis Kucinich in 2004 and 2008, and Bernie Sanders in 2016.  Every attempt to reform the Democratic Party has failed, most such efforts having become co-opted by the party establishment.

Following consistent wins by Republicans throughout the 1980s, Democrats beginning in 1989 started moving toward "fiscally conservative" (economically Right Wing) views, influenced by Tony Coelho.  This move to the Right would be cemented during the presidency of William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton in the '90s with the Democrats embracing Neoliberalism (an extreme Right Wing corporatist perspective which has been associated with the Fascist dictator of Chile, Augusto Pinochet, and which takes its name from the economic aspects of Classical Liberalism taken to extremes under Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover), and the Republicans began moving further to the Right themselves in an effort to stay to the Right of the Democrats on economic matters;  many Democrats who had previously called themselves "Liberal" (that is, Social Liberal) also attempted to rebrand following the 1988 election (due to the Republicans having done their best to turn the label into a smear, and the Democrats having no spine to defend their designation), by co-opting the label "Progressive," but without changing their views on social change.  As such, those Liberals who still (whether consistently or occasionally) claim to be Progressive are known by Modern Progressives as "Fauxgressives."  During the presidency of Barack Obama, the Democrats would chase the Republicans by moving even further to the Right, resulting in the Republicans again moving further to the Right.

Also during the Obama presidency, a group which had previously perverted Political Correctness by embracing the worst aspects thereof, including a tendency to authoritarianism, intolerance of even the slightest dissent (and sometimes even of sincere questions), and self-righteous busybodyism, began to distort Kimberlé Crenshaw's original iteration of the concept of "Intersectionality" into a focus on Identity Politics, even as some of them were usurping the language of Social Justice advocates in an effort to spread their outrage and facilitate their promotion of a victim mentality.  These would gradually coalesce, by 2012, into an apparently disorganized movement involving influences from Jacques Derrida's metaphysical Nominalism, Michel Foucault's pessimism and dislike of the idea of objective truth, sex-negative and androphobic fringe elements of Second Wave Feminism, and the social Liberalism of the Democratic Party, among other things.  These Outrage Mongers inserted themselves into the Occupy movement and rendered it impotent by pushing Identity Politics to divide the movement into rival groups based on "Identity," whereas the Occupy movement was at its inception successful through an emphasis on Solidarity.  Many of these Outrage Mongers also label themselves "Progressive," but due to their focus on divisive Identity Politics and their intolerance and authoritarianism, Modern Progressives have come to regard them as "Regressives."

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders brought the name "Progressive" back into the popular consciousness in his 2016 run for the Democratic Party nomination for President.  With a long history of rejecting the partisan loyalty of the Democratic fauxgressives (he has been an Independent most of his career) and the divisive Identity Politics of the regressives (indeed, he even explicitly pointed out that Identity Politics is divisive), Senator Sanders established his credentials as a Modern Progressive.  Unfortunately, for reasons which remain unclear, upon being denied the Democratic nomination for President in 2016, he endorsed Hillary Clinton, who is in no way Progressive.

Meanwhile, even as Democrats were telling Progressives that they didn't need us, David Cobb of Green Party candidate for President Jill Stein's campaign, issued an invitation to Progressives to come "help build and own the Green Party," and several new "Progressive" parties were formed, including "the Progressive Party," "the New Progressive Party," "the Progressive Independent Party," "the Progressive Bull Moose Party," and others.  Some of these have been influenced by regressives, while others may hold true to the Modern Progressive current.  How many of them will last until the next presidential election in 2020 remains to be seen, but the Green Party of the United States remains the Progressive Leftist party in the US with the largest membership and the longest history, as well as an established infrastructure and apparatus, members in public office, and experience getting on the ballot in spite of the numerous hurdles set by the two major parties -- and our numbers are growing.  Join us, and help realize the ideals of Modern Progressives which were born in the 1890s and entered adolescence in 1948, attaining adulthood in 2016, and slowly waking up to the pernicious deception of the "two" party system in the two years which have passed since then.  See the lies of the fauxgressives for what they are, eschew the intolerance and authoritarianism of the regressives, and reject the bifurcation fallacy of the "two" party system.  Join us and help reform the Democratic Federal Republic, and save our Earth from the depredations of those whose greed cannot be satisfied.

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