re: #293 SanFranciscoZionist

He was, and he was the guy who nominated Ollie Wendell Holmes, a great man who made some creepy decisions based on the received wisdom of his age. That’s why I want to know if there’s actually any reason to identify this crap as ‘progressive’ or ‘socialist’ or if it was simply the bad science of its day.

Teddy Roosevelt’s party was the Progressive Party. Wilson basically stole the moniker and both parties fought for the mantle of who were the real ‘progressives’. I’d be inclined to say that it was the bad science of its day and had bipartisan support for the most part, but also that ‘progressivism’ and various other socialistic and/or nationalist ideologies were so completely pervasive that its a moot point to me.

The whole concept of perfecting your race for the betterment of mankind fits the entire ‘make the world anew’ political thought of that same time period to a T, from both sides of the aisle.

If you are going by that constrained/unconstrained viewpoint, there really weren’t any constrained voices to right or left back that came anywhere near the halls of power. Churchill possibly fits that bill, but his views outside of the foreign policy arena didn’t play well at home.

The late 19th and early 20th century still had Carlists and other reactionaries as relevant political factions that probably vehemently rejected just about all prevailing thought, political and scientific that their opposition held dear. Again, I’m not sure that counts for anything though.