Now you are rejecting the idea that progressivism is liberalism. Welcome to my world.

In an address in North Carolina, FDR said:

In those days, 1913 and 1914, the leadership of the Nation was in the hands of a great President who was seeking to recover for our social system ground that had been lost under his conservative predecessor, and to restore something of the fighting liberal spirit which the Nation had gained under Theodore Roosevelt. It seemed one of our great national tragedies that just when Woodrow Wilson was beginning to accomplish definite improvements in the living standards of America, the World War not only interrupted his course, but laid the foundation for twelve years of retrogression.

Yes, you read that paragraph correctly. Now does FDR actually believe Teddy was a "liberal" having a "fighting liberal spirit"? No probably not. But FDR was retcon-drunk trying to retroactively change progressivism's back story after the deathblow 1920 election. And in changing history as FDR was doing, it simply required calling Teddy Roosevelt a liberal too on account of consistency. FDR also did this to Wilson, BTW.

Now, the thing is, I do not believe Theodore Roosevelt was a "liberal". And neither do you.

But this is a litmus test. If you are the kind of person who trust progressives when they say that progressivism = liberalism, if you are the kind of person who agrees with progressives(and there are a lot of you who will see this) then you don't get to exempt yourself, you have to be consistent. You need to call Theodore Roosevelt a liberal as well, because Teddy was in fact a big time progressive, a big time statist, and he was not a fan of the kinds of things related to governmental limitations. Theodore Roosevelt wanted maximal government.

Like all other progressives, Theodore Roosevelt was a postliberal. He wanted to get past the Constitution. Get past government limitations. Get past John Locke. Get past natural law and natural rights. Get past anything and everything related to the idea that he, Teddy, could not do whatever the heck he wanted to do. There is a whole party platform from the 1912 Progressive Party, Teddy's Party, explaining what exactly they wanted the government to be able to do to us. To us, understand that - do to us. That's what progressives are about.

Note how the 1912 Progressive Party is not the Liberal Party. Progressivism is not liberalism.

Progressivism was the first postliberal ideology to be seen in the U.S. Good job on you for being consistent in your refusal to call Theodore Roosevelt a "liberal". Progressives are not liberals.

New audiobook release: The Pioneer Mothers of America, Volume 2

Its been rougly 1 year to the day, Volume 2 of The Pioneer Mothers of America has been completed. This book series if you remember, goes into detail about our Founding Mothers. I'll be getting started on the final volume of the series soon. https://librivox.org/the-pioneer-mothers-of-america-volume-2-by-mary-wolcott-green/ https://progressingamerica.blogspot.com/2025/09/new-audiobook-release-pioneer-mothers.html

New audiobook release: Evolutionary Socialism, by Eduard Bernstein

Socialism is not always my wheelhouse. I think progressivism is the greatest threat that the U.S. has ever faced, not socialism. However that does not mean that I am not aware of the similar ideologies and have opinions of them. So it is with Socialism and its Revolutionary as well as Evolutionary variants.

The interesting thing about Evolutionary Socialism is that most people refuse to acknowledge its existence, just like people don't pay much attention to progressivism. Which is weird because arguably the most successful socialists in history are the British Fabians who promise to make haste slowly. An interest of note is how at times, the British Fabians and American Progressives did collaborate, and differences aside do take the same outlook of doing actions generally in small moves.

Well, the best way to understand something is simply to read (or now listen) to what they said about the topic and as such here is Eduard Bernstein's book about socialism piece by piece. It's literally the hand book about socialism by slowly boiling the frog in the pot.

Evolutionary Socialism, by Eduard Bernstein

Now I'm not saying pay a blind eye to the Revolutionaries. But what I am saying is that if over the decades, the Evolutionaries have been the most successful at implementing their goals, then you should be prioritizing your view and your discourses on the Evolutionaries. It's priorities. Most people that I see focus on the Revolutionaries and leave a blind eye to the Evolutionaries, which is a huge mistake. That is all I am getting at. In my summary for this book here is what I wrote:

Contains a challenge to the rigid Marxist orthodoxy that revolution is required in order achieve a centrally planned society. Bernstein believed in working from within a capitalist system in "revisionist", that is, evolutionary steps toward socialism. By gradually evolving in consistent legislative reforms, socialism could be made to become inevitable. Doing this would not only avoid the violence seen in earlier attempts to establish communism, but it would (Bernstein believed) endear the voting populace toward embracing a socialist future.

I think this is pretty accurate of a summary, even moreso for the view of Evolutionary Socialists than just simply the book itself.

New audiobook release: A Living Wage: Its Ethical and Economic Aspects, by John A. Ryan

Other than the Founding era, the Progressive era is the most interesting era of U.S. history, its a shame that most people scoff at looking directly at it though. We have so much to learn from this era and all that it did to us and keeps doing to us to this day.

In modern times we are sold on ideas of things like a "living wage", not realizing that the idea is over 100 years old and rooted directly smack in the middle of progressivism.

In 1915, Father John Ryan wrote the book "A Living Wage", after being deeply influenced (in part) by the Pope's encyclical Rerum Novarum. Best I can tell, that Rerum Novarum is pure poison. Its toxic and anybody who reads it and agrees with it is permanently polluted in their brains. That's all I ever see from people exposed to it. In any case, here is the link if you are interested in where the "Living Wage" comes from.

A Living Wage: Its Ethical and Economic Aspects, by John A. Ryan

New audiobook release: The Naked Communist, by W. Cleon Skousen

Check this one out my friends, got a heavy hitter here. This audio book is free and open source in the public domain, so give as many copies and links as you can to as many people as you want and it costs nothing. Its entirely free and legally sharable.

This book sells itself, so it needs no introduction from me. In 1958, Cleon Skousen wrote The Naked Communist, and along the way never re-applied for copyright protections. Here is where the audio is at, on Librivox at this link: (You can google search the name and title at LibriVox if you really feel that is necessary.)

https://librivox.org/the-naked-communist-by-w-cleon-skousen/

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=librivox+naked+communist

Now, luckily, we found it. We found that this book has been sitting there in the public domain with an expired copyright claim for years. As soon as this situation was discovered, work was initiated. Now the work is complete, my colleague did a fantastic job, and every single person with only rare exception can benefit from this.

Please enjoy.

New audiobook release: Mourt's Relation; or Journal of the plantation at Plymouth, by Edward Winslow

Because American culture is important to celebrate and remember. In this instance, the first Thanksgiving.

Mourt's Relation; or Journal of the plantation at Plymouth

Mourt's Relation is an account of the first year of the Plymouth Colony who arrived in Massachusetts, and is one of two books used as primary sources about the first Thanksgiving. The other is William Bradford's "Of Plimoth Plantation". - Summary by progressingamerica

"Of Plimoth Plantation": Bradford's History of the Plymouth Settlement, 1608-1650

Clarence Thomas is correct. Progressivism is a new ideology, it isn't socialism and it is not communism.

It is so refreshing to see that this week Justice Clarence Thomas called out the "new" ideology of Progressivism. Here is some what he said:

At the beginning of the 20th century, a new set of first principles of government was introduced into the American mainstream. The proponents of this new set of first principles, most prominently, the 28th president of our country, Woodrow Wilson called it progressivism. Since Wilson's presidency, progressivism has made many inroads into our system of government and our way of life. It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the declaration because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.

This is something I spent years blogging about until it dawned on me that most people didn't want to understand progressivism as a separate and wholly American ideology, most people want to lump it in with socialism. Why? The original progressives generally hated Marx. The elitism of Progressives had them believing that their beliefs in the administrative state outmoded the old ideologies of "revolution now" and government needs to nationalize everything that moves, breathes, and is taxable.

That and I started looking at the download numbers of my audio books vs the readership numbers of my blog. On the one hand I can get hundreds of readers and on the other hand I can get tens of thousands of audio downloads? The one that's worth my time couldn't be more clear.

Progressivism as of today is 126 years old - Thomas did get it just a tad bit slightly wrong by naming Wilson instead of Theodore Roosevelt in regards to Progressivism but that is alright. It is true and accurate to say that Wilson turbocharged TR's insanely terrible theories on government and scared the American People with Bull Moosism. In addition to Clarence Thomas, Hillsdale College has also long, long taught Progressivism as a separate ideology from socialism or communism. Here are the things of note:

The era of 1900-1920 is known as The Progressive Era. Nobody calls it The Communist Era, do they? Nor should they. That would be an act of historical malpractice.

America's first Progressive Party, founded in 1912 by in part Theodore Roosevelt, nobody calls it the 1912 Bull Moose Communist Party do they? Nor should they.

But as soon as I heard Clarence Thomas's comments, I had to write about it. It is such a vindication of so many years of hard work to have such a massive light, an amazing pillar of intellect - that being Clarence Thomas - come out and point specifically and exclusively to Progressives and not make the mistake of mixing it up.

Not marxists or communists or socialists. Just Progressives.

It is very refreshing.

I have recorded many, many Progressive/anti-socialist books into audio(books) so that they are updated for the 21st century. I would be happy to make recommendations for people to learn where to begin to study about this exclusive and new(as of the beginning of the 20th century) American anti-Constitutional ideology.