re: #1202 Kenneth

Yes and no.

Yes, the Progressives of today are not the same as 100 years ago.

No, they are not “liberals”. The people I have read using the term “progressive” are socialists, Marxists and other leftists. Liberalism is a Centrist position (ie. the Liberal Party of Canada). Progressives are decidedly to the Left.

The Original “Progressive Party” was a result of split within the Republican Party. The party and movement later morphed into another thing led by Robert LaFollette in the 1920’s as a reformist movement…mostly against the toll industrialization had taken against the formerly rural populace. Child labor laws, work place safety, etc. Once the two major parties started adopting many of the platform ideas from the party, it fell by the wayside.

What a “progressive” is today is a Democrat on the left side of the party that used to be called “liberal”. To say there is some kind of line from the Bull Moosers of the 1910’s to today’s left wing of the Democrat party is not accurate. They just took the name ‘cause it sounds cool (IMHO)