Progressivism is not a new term. Eclipsing the Populist Period of the late 19th century, which embraced a “radical agrarianism” that was tied to “grassroots democracy,” a potpourri of thinkers and practitioners seized the opportunity to use the centralized administrative and technological power of government to make wide-ranging civil, economic, and social change, nationalizing democratic institutions, stretching the meaning and application of constitutional principles and precedents, all for what they believed would bring about the flourishing of humanity. Is the pursuit and embracing of Progressivism, however, the way forward? We contend it is not.
Progressives or modern liberals are also referred to as managerial liberalism, because of their support for the administrative state and the resulting “big government” that has emerged. This embrace of a government directed by “experts,” who were trained in disciplines and vocations necessary for contributing to the advancement of society, clashed with the Founding Fathers’ philosophy. The Founders believed human nature was corrupt and flawed, and therefore it was critical to limit the role of government, including the unchecked capacity of administrators and elected officials. In Federalist 51, for example, James Madison wrote, “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
Even Alexander Hamilton believed in a federal government that was checked and balanced. In Federalist 70, even though he argues for an “energetic executive,” the “energy” expended is limited. The executive’s responsibility is to promote “good government,” “protect the community against foreign attacks,” engage in a “…steady administration of the laws” for “…the protection of property…justice; [and] to the security of liberty….” This does not sound like the chief executives today who, for example, wield nearly unchecked administrative power through executive orders.
The progressive tradition in American politics is strong. It exists not only at the national level, but also at the state level. During the late 19th and early 20th century, Progressivism influenced state politics in terms of agrarian radicalism and progressive reform movements. As an example, both Minnesota and Wisconsin were influenced by progressive politics. In Minnesota, the Non-Partisan League and the Democrat-Farmer Labor Party established the groundwork for progressive and even socialist politics and policies.
On a national level, Progressivism was found within both the Republican and Democrat parties. During the late 19th century, progressives found a champion with the populist agrarian William Jennings Bryan, who captured the Democrat Party presidential nomination with his fiery “Cross of Gold” speech. The Republican Party also had a progressive wing. The progressives in the Republican Party were under the leadership of President Theodore Roosevelt and Robert La Follette, among others. Both Roosevelt and La Follette would bolt the Party in 1912 and 1924 and run as a third party progressive presidential candidates. In 1912, Roosevelt was the Bull Moose (Progressive) Party and in 1924, La Follette was the Progressive Party nominee for president.
Shifting Political Priorities for Progressivism
From a national perspective Progressivism was measured in specific key presidential administrations that advanced its philosophy. President Theodore Roosevelt, much to the shock of conservatives within the Republican Party, was the first major progressive administration. Roosvelt pledged to the American people a Square Deal and he believed that as President, he was a “steward” of the people. Further, Roosevelt argued that it was only the federal government through economic regulation and anti-trust laws that could take on the power of big businesses. Roosevelt often was frustrated when Congress blocked or failed to advance his progressive policy agenda.
In 1912, Progressives followed Roosevelt as he bolted the Republican Party after he realized he would not be able to defeat President William Howard Taft for the nomination. The result was a civil war within the Republican Party and with Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party, it provided an opportunity for Democrats to win the presidency in 1912.
President Woodrow Wilson was even more critical of the Constitution and the American Founding than was Roosevelt. Wilson believed that the Constitution was a “living” not static document, thus evolving in meaning and implementation according to the changing times. Wilson described his reform agenda as New Freedom. He argued that not only had America changed, but the Constitution could no longer govern appropriately. New methods were needed. Wilson wrote:
“Our life has broken away from the past. The life of America is not the life that it was twenty years ago; it is not the life that it was ten years ago. We have changed our economic conditions, absolutely, from top to bottom; and, with our economic society, the organization of our life. The old political formulas do not fit the present problems; they read like documents taken out of a forgotten age. “
Wilson argued that as a growing, burgeoning nation, progress required technical experts in all fields of vocation, including science, engineering, management technology, education, and beyond. These experts, instead of citizens and elected officials, were the sinew of organizational and institutional change, what today we often call the administrative state. Wilson even extended his Progressivism beyond domestic politics, and he applied it to foreign policy. Wilson’s liberal internationalism called for free trade, an active presence in foreign affairs, and collective security. All of these would govern the post-World War II international and foreign policy order.
The Great War and Wilson’s League of Nations had resulted in the American people rejecting his progressive ideology, and the nation shifted back toward constitutional conservatism during the 1920s. Presidents Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, along with the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William Howard Taft and Charles Evans Hughes fought against the rising tide of Progressivism.
Constitutional historian Melvin I. Urofsky described the 1920s “as a battleground between traditionalists fearful of the new ways and modernists eager to shed the shackles of older ideas and practices.” At the center of this conflict was the role of the Constitution. Would it limit, separate, and divide the powers of government, thus protecting individual rights and liberties? Or would it evolve as Wilson declared it should and must, granting governments greater authority to rule and regulate human endeavors?
By the 1930s, the severity of the Great Depression permitted the progressives to resume power with the election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s New Deal would represent a revolutionary change to the government. The New Deal not only expanded the administrative state, but it also introduced the entitlement state with the emergence of Social Security. Roosevelt was also able to “remake” the Supreme Court and the pro-New Deal Court validated much of Roosvelt’s power expansion. President Roosevelt’s New Deal altered the scope of federal government, and it became the foundation for future presidential administrations, from both parties, to expand both the administrative and entitlement states.
With the advent of the 1960s, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society significantly shifted Progressivism. According to William Schambra and Thomas West, “LBJ’s Great Society made more explicit and direct an application of the Progressive commitment to rule by social science experts, largely unmitigated initially by political considerations.” The Great Society waged “war” on poverty, “reshape(ing) the behavior of the poor,” socially reengineering their attitudes and actions through application of social and policy science theory.
It was President Barack Obama who fully embraced the cultural revolution, leading in large part to where we are today politically. The Obama administration not only expanded the federal government though programs such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and New Deal-style stimulus spending, but it opened the proverbial floodgates for expanding access to abortion, legalization of same-sex marriage, uncontrolled illegal immigration, radicalization of transgenderism, the politicization of identity politics, including imposition of DEI programs and initiatives in business, education, and the military, among other social changes. Many of these have been enacted at the state level.
For example, Gov. Tim Walz and the DFL legislature have expanded access to abortion, making it easier for minors to get gender altering procedures without parental notification, and legalization of marijuana. Minnesota changed the state flag based on the “charge” it was racist.
Further, according to Reform California, California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Democratic Party are providing free social services and benefits to illegal immigrants, passing laws that hinder police officers from promoting public safety, restricting parental rights, and clamping down on the “right of self-defense.”
Today, Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz are the most progressive Democrat presidential and vice-presidential nominees in American political party history. A major theme of the Harris-Walz campaign is that the Democrat Party is the protector of democracy and former President Donald Trump is a “threat to democracy.”
Harris has outlined an economic “opportunity” agenda that is based on past progressive polices ranging from price controls, expanding regulations, tax increases, increasing tax credits, and increasing government spending to subsidize various programs. This also includes expanding the state entitlement by having the federal government provide completely for or help support services such as childcare and home ownership.
The Increasing Danger of Progressivism
Progressives dismiss constitutional arguments and often argue that the Constitution is not only obsolete, but an obstacle. This is a progressive trait that has not changed since Wilson. Progressives even believe that it is fine to alter institutions to serve your political objectives. Whether it is abolishing the Electoral College, eliminating the filibuster in the Senate, packing the Supreme Court, or even altering the structure of the United States Senate, have all been expressed by progressives as solutions to implement their agenda.
Modern progressives are not just declaring war on our nation’s past and rewriting our history, but they are actively trying to transform school curriculums to meet their ideological objectives. Perhaps most alarming they are more than willing to shred the Bill of Rights in order to advance their radical agenda. This includes attacking free speech, undermining religious liberty, eliminating the right to keep and bear arms, among other fundamental rights.
The COVID lockdowns were an example of the progressive efforts to curtail civil liberties. In some states, people were not allowed to gather on Sunday to attend church and worship, but they were permitted to “peacefully protest” during the Black Lives Matter riots.
Perhaps the most important lesson from examining the Progressive Movement is to understand that even behind the internal debates within progressivism is a philosophy that is openly working to deconstruct society. Whether it is our Constitution, the economy, religion and faith, education, and other aspects of society, Progressivism is seeking to alter and abolish American constitutionalism and replace our history, traditions, and our moral order with a completely new system based on their ideology.
What is the Way Forward?
A fundamental difference between progressives and conservatives is how they each view change. Change is inevitable, but from a conservative perspective, it should be prudent and measured. Herbert Hoover wrote, “My idea of a conservative is one who desires to retain the wisdom and experience of the past and who is prepared to apply the best of that wisdom and experience to meet the changes which are inevitable in every new generation.”
Russell Kirk, a 20th century American conservative philosopher, wrote extensively on the very crux of Hoover’s quote. In Kirk’s The Politics of Prudence (1993), he outlines several principles that restore a Burkean conservative tradition, while recognizing the inevitability of change. We address three such principles.
First is the acceptance of societal moral order or harmony. Such order is not stifling or Victorian; it is stable but reflective regarding the need for not only virtues, such as justice and honor, but the actuality of political and social change that embraces the ethos of justice and honor. Society that is hell bent on change for change’s sake loses sight and purpose of the need for strength of character.
Second, is the need for prudence or caution. Yet, again, caution does not imply change of course is unwarranted. Reliance on prudence in rejecting abortion, for example, and pursuing maintenance for the right to life, is critical, but this does not mean well-intentioned individuals and/or states may seek to exercise their right to end a pregnancy. We maintain, however, that such action be motivated and engaged with deep thought and wise action.
Third, Kirk advocates “voluntary acceptance of community” rather than governmental imposition of “involuntary collectivism.” The latter restricts human freedom and rights, while the former recognizes and advocates that decisions made at the local or community level are not only based on a person’s exercise of free will, but build and strengthen the critical institutions of society, including family, education, religion, business, and more.
He argues that injecting society with “central administration…however well-intentioned and well trained, cannot confer justice and prosperity and tranquility upon…men and women…” Humans are made in the image of God, not the State. They will flourish when they are able to make decisions, enter into agreements and contracts, and engage in civic action, freely and without coercion. History is replete with failed social and political experiments that enforce the reverse.
Iowa serves as an example of this conservative philosophy in action. Since 2018, Governor Kim Reynolds has led a conservative policy agenda which has included pro-growth tax reform, reforming state government, reducing the regulatory burden, and defending traditional values against the woke cultural Marxist agenda. Iowa’s conservatism is in stark contrast to the progressive revolutionary changes that are occurring in Minnesota under Gov. Walz.
Gov. Reynolds and her policies reflect the conservative tradition, but it will take more than politics to reverse the progressive revolution. It will take a cultural change and a reformation back to constitutional principles. A prediction, if the Harris-Walz campaign wins and their victory also results in a Democrat majority Congress, it will result in the most radical transformation of American government since the New Deal. Progressives argue that this will be “progress” and a “new way forward,” but for conservatives this will be the undoing of our constitutional republic.
