Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
The Dawning of the Age of Neo-Progressivism
The Dawning of the Age of Neo-Progressivism
Jul 8, 2025 2:32 AM

Given the current slate of policy proposals that are popular today across the country, one could argue the Democratic Party could rename itself the “Progressive Democratic Party.” From the policies and public rhetoric of leaders in the Obama administration to New York mayorial candidate Bill de Blasio, we can see that progressivism is back in a new way.

According to the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, a university-chartered research center associated with the Department of History of The George Washington University, progressivism is a term applied to a variety of responses to the economic and social problems that rapid industrialization introduced to America spanning from around 1890 to 1920. Progressivism began primarily as a social movement but later morphed into public policy initiatives and even into a political party in 1912. The early progressives rejected Social Darwinism, believing that “the problems society faced (poverty, violence, greed, racism, class warfare) could best be addressed by providing good education, a safe environment, and an efficient workplace. Progressives lived mainly in the cities, were college educated, and believed that government could be a tool for change.”

Does this sound familiar? President Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was not so much a platform for “liberals” as it was an introduction to America’s neo-progressivism. Today’s neo-progressivism has the same views of the role of elites to govern society, the role of government to run economies with a twist on social agendas, and so on. There are differences, however. The progressivism of old was explicitly racist at times and supported programs like eugenics to rid America of those who might impede national progress. In fact, Margaret Sanger helped to launch and systematize abortion as a progressivist weapon to that end. While the eugenicist abortion platform has been recast as a “women’s health” issue, today’s es with the consecration of minority groups as sacred and therefore justifies the use of government to guarantee them various special rights, protections, and privileges under the law. In the neo-progressivist era, every minority group deserves to have their lifestyles and choices enhanced and protected by the state.

U.S. History.org explains the development of progressivism this way:

The Progressives were urban, Northeast, educated, middle-class, Protestant reform-minded men and women. . . It was more of a movement than a political party, and there were adherents to the philosophy in each major party. There were three progressive presidents — Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt and Taft were Republicans and Wilson was a Democrat. What united the movement was a belief that the laissez faire, Social Darwinist outlook of the Gilded Age was morally and intellectually wrong. Progressives believed that people and government had the power to correct abuses produced by nature and the free market.

Does the Obama administration believe that government has the power and capacity to correct the contingencies of a broken world? Does his administration believe the government is there to manage and oversee the free market? It would be difficult to answer “No” to these questions. This explains why his tenure has been criticized by some as an explosion of more and more government programs. Moreover, one of the greatest examples of the resurgence of neo-progressivism is Obamacare. This is the most Rooseveltian idea we have seen in decades.

In the New York City race for mayor, the contest for the Democratic Party’s candidate is actually a debate about who best represents progressivism. Bill de Blasio is explicitly campaigning on a progressivist platform. He is pitching himself as the “True Progressive Choice.”

Do not take my word for it. Read the Progressive Party platform from 1912 pare the agenda to what we might hear from today’s “Democrats” or the proposals on the President’s own website. Among progressive ideologues there is heated debate about the President’s true mitments because of his foreign policy proposals of late. But it could be argued that what we are seeing is a new era of progressive fusion that, at times, will borrow rhetoric from classical liberal, democratic, conservative, nationalistic, and socialist ideologies to reassert what progressives sought back in 1912.

Neo-progressives are finding themselves more accepted as mentators as well. One of the chief promotions of neo-progressivism can be found in the writing of Wendell Berry, for example. Whatever the source, it is safe to say that neo-progressivism will be with us for quite some time.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Global Warming Consensus Alert: KILL ‘EM ALL
I’ll admit – it’s been a long time since I’ve posted a Global Warming Consensus Alert because, frankly, any “consensus” that existed was blown apart by the release of the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit e-mails, which revealed a whole bunch of underhanded activity on the part of scientists promoting the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. What’s the point anymore? The unshakeable climate “consensus” has been shown to be the fraud that it always was, and the catastrophic climate...
A Federal Tax Receipt
There’s an old saying to the effect: “Show me a man’s checkbook and I’ll show you what’s important to him.” It may not be quite the same as a checkbook, but NPR’s Planet Money passes along what a receipt from the federal government might look like for an average taxpayer (HT): As Third Way, who put together the taxpayer receipt, argues: An electorate unschooled in basic budget facts is a major obstacle to controlling the nation’s deficit, not to mention...
Questions on Work and Intellectual Development
Carl Trueman has a lengthy reflection and asks some pertinent and pressing questions on the nature of work and human intellectual development. Recalling his job at a factory as a young man in the 1980s, Trueman writes concerning those who were still at their positions on the line when he had moved on: Their work possessed no intrinsic dignity: it was unskilled, repetitive, poorly paid, and provided no sense of achievement. Yes, it gave them a wage; but not a...
Mere Comments: The Neo-Anabaptist Temptation
Today at Mere Comments I highlight what I’m calling the “Neo-Anabaptist temptation.” Check it out. ...
German Freedom and the Danger of Socialism
In this week’s Acton Commentary, I remember German reunification and reflect on its relevance for the present. Twenty years ago this Sunday, East and West Germany reunited, capping one of the most extraordinary transformations in modern history. Communism in the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites had collapsed; the oppressed nations of Europe rejoined the “free world.” My generation was the last to straddle the two worlds, pre- and post-Soviet Union. When I was in elementary and high school,...
Review: Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers began Witness, the classic account of his time in the American Communist underground, with the declaration: “In 1937, I began, like Lazarus, the impossible return.” The line was most of all a deep recognition of the power of God to redeem what was once dead. Witness was a landmark account of the evils of Communism but most importantly a description of the bankruptcy of freedom outside of the sacred. “For Chambers, God was always the prime mover in...
Trailer: Doing the Right Thing
The Colson Center for Christian Worldview is preparing to release a new study DVD this fall titled, Doing the Right Thing: A Six-Part Exploration of Ethics. The DVD is designed as a resource for small-group studies and features leading thinkers who explore the need for ethical behavior in the marketplace, public square, political life and other areas. Hosts Brit Hume, Chuck Colson, Dr. Robert George and a distinguished panel — including Acton’s Rev. Robert Sirico and Michael Miller — undertake...
Ecumenical Witness or Ecumenical Tyranny?
Robert Joustra, writing on the website of the Canadian think tank Cardus, has published a thoughtful review of Jordan Ballor’s Ecumenical Babel: Confusing Economic Ideology and the Church’s Social Witness. The reviewer understands that when, … controversial social science infiltrates ecclesial confessions, twin dangers promising the integrity of the Gospel, and splitting the church on political and economic issues. Ecumenical superstructures claiming to speak with ecclesial authority on technical matters worry me, even when technical experts are enlisted. The point...
Samuel Gregg: Europe’s Broken Economies
Acton’s Research Director in the American Spectator: Europe’s Broken Economies By Samuel Gregg During September this year, much of Europe descended into mild chaos. Millions of Spaniards and French went on strike (following, of course, their return from six weeks vacation) against austerity measures introduced by their governments. Across the continent, there are deepening concerns about possible sovereign-debt defaults, stubbornly-high unemployment, Ireland’s renewed banking woes, and the resurgence of right-wing populist parties (often peddling left-wing economic ideas). Indeed, the palpable...
Public Accountability for Public Officials
Via TechDirt: …a judge has tossed out the wiretapping claims pointing out that there was no expectation of privacy out in public. “Those of us who are public officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately accountable to the public,” the judge wrote. “When we exercise that power in public fora, we should not expect our actions to be shielded from public observation.” There’s more here and here on the question of law enforcement and ‘citizen...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved