De progressive skriver om de progressives politiske bedrifter

Tænketanken Center for American Progress (CAP) for udsendt publikationen "The Progressive Tradition in American Politics", hvori Senior Fellow Ruy Teixeira and Senior Fellow John Halpin beskriver de progressives indflydelse på amerikansk politik i det sidste århundrede. De opremser en lang række nye love og reguleringer, som er blevet til på initiativ af progressive.

Publikationen overser dog de værste politiske tiltag i historien, men professor David Bernstein giver en oversigt på The Volokh Conspiracy (16/4):

"The monograph begins with a laundry list of the Progressives’ legislation accomplishment. But among the Progressive reforms nowhere mentioned in this monograph are: alcohol prohibition; coercive eugenics (upheld in an appallingly insensitive opinion by Progressive hero O.W. Holmes); residential segregation by race (invalidated by the “conservative” Supreme Court); bans on private schools (invalidated by the “conservative” Supreme Court); judicial recall elections; and restrictions on women’s participation in the labor market (invalidated in part by the “conservative” Supreme Court, and then reaffirmed by a “Progressive” Supreme Court)".

Publikationen beskriver ærligt, hvordan den konservative revolution med præsident Ronald W. Reagan i spidsen fik bremset de progressive og deres planer om tiltagende statsstyring af det amerikanske samfund. Forfatterne konkluderer:

"Democrats appeared powerless to stop this juggernaut, saddled as they were with a double-barreled progressivism that increasingly seemed like a dual liability. On the one hand they were committed to a model of the welfare state economy that no longer worked and, on the other, they were tied to a set of constituency groups whose priorities seemed alien to middle America. Especially after their preferred candidate, Walter Mondale, got blown away in the 1984 election, losing every state but Minnesota and the District of Columbia, it seemed to many progressives that their cause was hopeless.

It would take a quarter of a century from that low point for progressives to rise again to a position of strength. Now, with Barack Obama in office, powered by a new coalition quite different from the New Deal coalition that midcentury progressives relied on, progressives are once again in a position to change American society in big ways. We will take up the story of how progressives rebuilt their political strength since 1984 in another installment of the Progressive Tradition series".

Nu er de progressive tilbage i Washington D.C. med planer for en omfattende udvidelse af statsmagten i USA.