What Has Progressed Under Progressivism?
As we prepare for the onslaught of propaganda that is coming our way (from both sides) during the lead-up to the Midterm Elections, we all need to take a step back from the preferred narratives being foisted upon us by the political Left and mainstream media and ask ourselves one question. What has “progressed” under the “progressive” movement?
Keep in mind that the “progressive” movement is a political movement; an ideological movement, that has very little – if anything – to do with the actual progress our society has made over the last 120 years. In fact, the innovations made from the early 20th Century on – the nascent years of the American progressive political movement – were achieved despite the emergence of Progressivism.
In The Beginning...
The advent of Progressivism brought forth the age when academics, theorists, and so-called “experts” were positioned to the seats of power without being elected to receive that power. Under President Woodrow Wilson (D), our federal government transformed from one of true representative government to one of centralized bureaucracy enabled by representative government.
During this time the heavy hand of the federal government regulatory process was born. The prevailing “wisdom” of the elitist (read: fascist) ruling class was that experts knew better what was good for society than the people including those elected to office to craft legislation.
It was at this time that Congress started crafting very loosely worded legislation, leaving the minutia of the said legislation to be codified through regulation; regulation not specifically laid out by our elected officials. Today, this is how the CDC, EPA, SEC, and every other alphabet agency, department, and commission is able to issue edicts with the weight of law.
At this time the elites in the federal government – including the newly empowered “expert” class – also began to embrace a contempt for the average working American. This is evidenced by the codifying of the 16th Amendment which laid waste to equal and equitable taxation and, instead, created the “progressive tax system,” which treats working-class Americans very differently depending on their income.
The Arrogance...
Those who possessed a progressive mindset at the movement’s genesis were typically urban, northeastern, academics of the upper- and upper-middle-class; Protestant reform-minded people, the same demographic responsible for moving prohibition into law. They believed in the ultimate superiority of man over all things, including the environment, the free markets, and their fellow citizens.
In fact, before the First World War, just about every aspect of society was abused by progressive reforms.
Unions appeared on the scene, and while legitimate workplace concerns were rightfully addressed, there were no political caps or meaningful limitations placed on the unions. The organizations exploded onto the scene without safeguards in place to protect all of the people involved in the marketplace; labor and/or management. Over time, organized crime claimed a huge footprint in the unions, and corruption, violence, and even death ruled the sphere. Today, they are just as disruptive and opportunistic as they were when organized crime syndicates ran them.
And while progressives crowed about conservation, hiding behind the skirt of Theodore Roosevelt’s love for the open spaces, that open door led to today’s opportunistic and disingenuous climate change movement, a movement completely steeped in a quest for transformative power, and not to electricity-based power but a quest to “fundamentally transform the United States of America” from a Constitutional Republic to a one-of-many cog in a globalist scheme to erode the sovereignty of nations. One need just to take the time to read their own words about The Great Reset to understand that they are doing this, in real-time, right in front of our faces.
The overall unequal treatment of American citizens also began during the genesis of the Progressive Era with political and ideological deference given to the urban poor. Progressive politicians realized they could control the outcomes of elections more easily if they catered to the urban areas, catered to the massive demographic that was the urban poor; a political meal ticket.
Today, we see the result of this effort in the grotesque and disingenuous political favoritism playing out in the Balkinazation of our citizenry; of just about every demographic that has and can be created. Identity politics is used by even the most intellectually stunted of community activists and organizers, or aspiring politicians (of which there are a lot). And those in power raid the treasury under the guise of establishing social safety net programs and benevolence to bribe these demographics into voting for them; bribing them with taxpayer dollars.
The Most Egregious Move
But perhaps the most egregious achievement of the progressives was the passage of the 17th Amendment, which gave people the ability to directly elect their US Senators.
In the form of government our Framers crafted for us, the US Senate was supposed to represent the States, not the people. The House of Representatives was the chamber with a direct relationship to the people. It is for that reason that congressional districts are relatively limited in size. The Senate was meant to protect the interests of the States in the halls of the federal government.
Article I, Section 3 of the US Constitution states, in part:
“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote...”
The reasoning behind the legislative appointments came from the notion that if senators were beholden to the will of the State legislatures, they could be recalled if they placed party politics ahead of the well-being of their respective States.
This was important for the maintenance of State sovereignty and to maintain the States’ ability to hold the federal government in check. Case in point, Obamacare, the TARP bailout, COVID restrictions, and the laughably named Inflation Reduction Act would have never – ever – been passed because they all bled the State treasuries on unfunded federal government mandates. A pure Senate would have rejected those measures outright because they were all unfair to and levied undue burdens on the States.
But that protection was lost after the passage of the 17th Amendment, which states, in part:
“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years...”
Today, the US Senate is simply an over-glorified version of the House, completely owned by the political parties and devoid of any allegiance to the States they were elected to represent or to the protection of their States from an overreaching federal government.
What Have They Progressed Us Too?
So, as we approach the Midterm Elections and set the stage for the all-important 2024 General Election, we need to dispense with the media-preferred debate narratives that juxtapose the Republicans against the Democrats. It’s not a choice between Republicans and Democrats. It’s a choice between the realization of the progressive movement’s end game or the return to Individualism and sovereign rights.
Instead, we must see these upcoming elections as a referendum on the overall direction of our country and these main questions:
Has a progressive agenda served the people of the United States?
Are we willing to sacrifice individualism and our rights to an all-powerful central government?
Do we want to continue down a path to a place where a centralized government – ruled by unelected experts in the many departments, agencies, and commissions under the Executive Branch – controls every aspect of our lives even as they incrementally remove our freedoms?
Do we want to continue down a path to fascism where the federal government enlists behemoth private sector industries and financial entities to enforce societal change that couldn’t be passed through Congress into law?
Do we really want to enable the progressives (and the correct terminology here is fascist, by definition) to continue moving our nation down the path of delivery to the globalist elite; to the demise of our sovereignty; to our subservience to unelected global tyrants like Klaus Schwab and his cabal at the World Economic Forum?
Do we even want to contemplate a world in which the global elite have made it economically unfeasible to farm our own land, raise and bring to market our own livestock, and fish our own seas only to force us into eating crickets? And if you think I am kidding you need to understand the WEF-backed UN Agenda 2030 and the Hult Prize-winning Aspire Groups.
Or do we want to reclaim our rights under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? Do we want our freedom of speech back? Do we want to be secure in our “persons, houses, papers, and effects”?
If we value individualism over Orwellian groupthink; if we value free markets, stable currency, prosperity, opportunity for all, and equal justice; if we want to protect freedom before it is gone, then we have to make sure the progressives lose and lose big in the upcoming Midterm and General Elections.
And then we must (as Alinsky taught the groupthinkers of the radical progressive movement) keep the pressure on those we have elevated to power to do what is necessary and begin the dismantling of the unconstitutional centralized government apparatus the progressives have brought to us.
And while changes at the federal level will only stop the bleeding, that hemorrhage control allows for true reformative change back to constitutionalism; to form from a bottom-up solution crafted by the States and brought into effect by governors who understand that once freedom is lost, it is lost forever.
So, for me at least, the choice is clear this November and in November 2024. If you entertain anything about progressivism, you must be defeated...at all costs.
