Progressive vs. Liberal

Chris Bowers with one of the better blog posts I've seen on why progressive is preferable to the word liberal:

Both Atrios and Yglesias don't think progressive should be used in place of liberal, and that it is time to reclaim the word liberal. In this case, I have to disagree with them. While Matt and Duncan dislike the historic implications of progressive, what with its connections to early 20th century progressivism and all, I actually dislike the historic implications of "liberal" even more. The term "liberalism" has always been too historically tied in with laissez faire economics of Hoover and the virtually unregulated trade agreements of the 1990's for my tastes.

Seventy-five years ago, FDR began co-opting the term "liberal" in a way that was interchangeable with "progressive." He did so for political reasons, since at the time the term "liberal" was viewed much more favorably than the term "progressive." It worked, too, since liberal was a very favorably viewed ideological term for the next forty years. Today, I feel like we are in pretty much the same situation. For the past decade, quite a bit of work has been sunk into resurrecting and co-opting "progressive" as a more positive ideological term for the American center-left than "liberal." It has been successful work, too, since"progressive" is now the most favorably viewed ideological term in America. While Democratic presidential candidates would never, ever call themselves liberal, they all frequently call themselves "progressive." And having leaders who are willing to self-identify with the center-left is real "progress" for the American center-left.

When so much work has been spent co-opting and developing a much more favorably viewed term for the center-left over the past decade, turning back now just seems like way too much effort. We can, and have, changed the meaning of the term progressive from its earlier connotations in American politics. We have both made it our own and made it more popular. Also, I for one would actually rather be connected with pre-FDR self-identified progressives than with pre-FDR self-identified liberals. For example, give me Elizabeth Cady Stanton over Herbert Hoover any day of the week, and twice on Sundays. Yet further, "progressive" is also a true opposite to "conservative" in a way that "liberal" just isn't. In the end, no term will ever be perfect, but right now self-identifying as progressive offers many more advantages than self-identifying as liberal.

Bowers is responding in part to this argument by Matt Yglesias:

While the historically Progressives did stand for some good things, and are a part of the backstory of contemporary American liberalism, they also stood for some very bad things. Certainly, whatever sins liberalism may have committed in the 1970s as it fell into disrepute were distinctly minor compared to the problems with the Progressives.

In addition to Bowers' convincing argument—I too would "would actually rather be connected with pre-FDR self-identified progressives than with pre-FDR self-identified liberals"—its worth remembering that pretty much nobody outside of a handful of political science and history departments actually remembers that there was something called a Progressive Era in the two decades around the fin de siècle, or, if they do, what it was about. In this sense, progressive is a blank slate waiting to be filled in, rather than one that comes with all sorts of baggage for a substantial share of Americans.

I imagine that progressive, like liberal, will have its own life cycle, one that will have come to an end a few decades from now. By then, but not sooner, everyone will have forgotten what liberal means and it may be of some use again. Until then, insisting that we need to "reclaim the word liberal" is as strategically unwise as calling for an "amnesty for illegal immigrants", defending "quotas", or continuing to call Temporary Assistance "welfare." In all three cases, there are more accurate and persuasive descriptions of the policies one is trying to get people to support.