Progressivism in America: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

Progressivism in America analyzes the progressive tradition in American politics from the late nineteenth century through the presidency of Barack Obama. In a series of essays, a group of historians, social scientists, journalists, and policy makers try to determine whether Obama's election initiated a sustained transition from the conservatism that dominated U.S. politics for thirty years or was only a blip on a conservative political screen that extends into the foreseeable future. Essayists also suggest items for a progressive agenda that might have a chance of defeating the increasingly conservative and uncompromising Republican party at the polls. Defining progressivism as “the mainstream left in the American body politic,” the editors identify three major take-aways from the volume (p. xviii): (1) progressivism is as integral to American history and politics as conservatism; (2) progressivism has promoted or even generated various forms of inequality and violence even as it diminished others (they refer here to such evidence as Woodrow Wilson's racial segregation of federal agencies, the internment of Japanese Americans on Franklin D. Roosevelt's watch, and the expansion of the Vietnam War under Lyndon B. Johnson); and (3) they offer cautious optimism about progressivism's future, mostly for demographic reasons: racial minorities, women, millennials, and urban whites are becoming an ever-greater portion of the electorate, and these groups tend to be progressive.