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Progressives Against Progress
Progressives Against Progress
A Waymo autonomous taxi burns during a protest in Los Angeles on June 8, 2025. (Photo by Robert LeBlanc)
Whether it’s on identity, economics, or merit, the American left is no longer committed to progress. Can it return to the universal values on which it was founded?
By Ruy Teixeira
07.15.25 — U.S. Politics
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Progressives Against Progress

American progressivism is on the march. New York City will, barring a miracle, have a socialist mayor next year. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been packing arenas in their “Fight the Oligarchy” tour. The chances of the Democrats nominating a Democratic Socialist presidential candidate have never been higher. The left’s moderates, meanwhile, are struggling for attention—or an answer to the question of how to tackle Trump.

And yet, even as American progressivism is having a moment, it has drifted so far from the values that it was founded on as to be unrecognizable. Today’s progressivism is both by and for young, well-off, and well-educated urbanites. But that wasn’t always the case. Allow me to explain.

Progressives once sought to make life better for ordinary people by emphasizing their universal interests across racial, ethnic, and cultural divisions. They wanted to ensure universal fair treatment for everyone. They promoted universal standards of merit, achievement, and truth. And they believed in providing universal access to America’s bounty, from scientific achievement to economic growth to healthcare. The core concept was that if Americans were treated in this fashion, the country would prosper—and that existing social and governmental arrangements should be pushed in that direction.


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Ruy Teixeira: The LA Riots Are a Trump Ad

A progressive, after all, was supposed to be for progress. Today’s progressives are different. They have rejected the universal approach and instead embraced professional-class cultural priorities and policy preferences. In that sense, they have lost the right to call themselves “progressives.” Instead, they now stand in the way of progress as they used to define it—indeed, progress as most ordinary voters would recognize it.

Here are some of the ways that progressives have bid farewell to progress.

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Ruy Teixeira

Ruy Teixeira is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the co-founder of the Substack The Liberal Patriot.

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