How You Know That Progressivism Has Peaked

You know that the Progressivists have hit their peak and started the long slide toward historical irrelevance and oblivion when the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities from a small liberal arts college on the Hudson -- a college that the Princeton Review ranked as the second most liberal college in the US -- who claims he is a Democrat that voted for Obama in 2008 and who was, to boot, a one-time Henry Kissinger Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations writes a commentary titled " When Government Jumps the Shark*."


Yep, Walter Russell Mead is at it again.  You must read " Jumps the Shark", if only to see the five different ways he fills in "Great White _____," each one on point and progressively worse -- if you'll pardon the pun -- than the previous one.

Here is the take-away quote for me:

Progressivism itself, and not simply the individual government programs it spawns, is moving through the same cycle of life.  The most urgent social problems that progressivism set out to solve have been dealt with.  Child labor and lynch mobs are no longer common in the United States.  The greatest natural and scenic treasures of the country are protected by the National Park system.  Food is much less dangerous, buildings are better built, cars are safer, the air and water is in better shape and the charismatic megafauna (big interesting animals) have been saved from extinction.  Many more people have much more access to education today than was true 100 years ago; ditto for lifesaving medical treatment.

To understand the cycle of life to which he refers, read his commentary.  By the time you're done you'll be telling yourself, "Yep.  Progressivists have jumped the shark."
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* You can read up on jumping the shark here if you don't already know -- I didn't!