The Roots of Progressivism
You can’t argue against it if you don’t understand it... Michael Barone , America’ preeminent political scholar, explores the roots of progressivism, that un-American and statist doctrine spawned at the dawn of the 20th century. Progressivism’s Premise The Progressives explicitly repudiated the Founders’ vision of limited government. They argued that government needed to redistribute property, to take money from one group of citizens to help others, and to regulate economic activity in ways previously considered unconstitutional. More importantly, says Barone, “They feared revolution.” Even “good” countries experienced such upheavals back in the late 1800’s. People of the early 1900’s looked up to central-planning strong men as the wave of the future, if not out of fear of central-planning communists. You see, fascism, communism and progressivism were not opposing ideologies, they were competing for the support of the same group of people! The...