We must reclaim the word ‘progressive’

I’ve grown tired of hearing the term progressive used to describe people and policies that embody anything but progress. The word suggests a movement toward liberty, reason and human dignity. But what now passes for “progressive” ideology is a regressive assault on foundational principles: race-based social engineering, denial of biological truth, hostility toward the rule of law and an obsession with censorship disguised as compassion.

Progress gave us the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, constitutional government and equal protection under the law. It was built on Enlightenment ideals – reason, open inquiry and the primacy of the individual over tribe. The ideologues now claiming the label have rejected those very foundations. They call for defunding police, institutionalizing racial favoritism, redefining sex as a matter of feeling and punishing speech that deviates from their ever-shifting orthodoxy.

Let’s be clear: this is not a progressive left, and it’s time to retire that label altogether. What we’re dealing with is a movement of Neo-Jacobin ideologues – absolutists who don’t seek reform, but reeducation. Like their namesakes from the French Revolution, they speak the language of justice while enforcing ideological purity through coercion and public shaming.

This faction is not a grassroots rebellion. It is embedded in power. These are technocratic moralists – entrenched in elite institutions, HR departments, media outlets and universities – who deploy authority not to enlighten, but to control. Through bureaucratic fiat and moral intimidation, they enforce dogma on race, gender, and history with the cold efficiency of a spreadsheet and the fervor of a crusade.

Their worldview is anti-liberal at its core. They treat reason as a tool of oppression, science as a colonial relic and speech as a weapon to be silenced. They do not want conversation; they want submission. Free expression, presumption of innocence, objective merit – these are framed as threats to “equity,” a euphemism that now justifies institutionalized discrimination and double standards.

What’s especially galling is the self-righteousness with which they denounce the very civilization that made their freedom possible. Western civilization – imperfect but uniquely capable of self-correction – brought about the highest levels of liberty tolerance, and pluralism in history. And yet these cultural revolutionaries show nothing but contempt for its legacy, all while exploiting its protections and platforms.

They redefine language to make dissent impossible, moralize complex policy questions into binaries of good versus evil and vilify anyone who insists on empirical truth over ideological narrative. These tactics are not progressive. They are reactionary in the truest sense – designed to roll back centuries of hard-won progress in favor of identity tribalism and ideological conformity.

They are not interested in elevating the marginalized, but in flattening everyone into collective guilt or victimhood. They view society not as something to improve, but as something to punish. And when challenged, they respond not with argument, but with cancellation – career ruin, social exile, and character assassination.

If all this sounds extreme, it’s because it is. Yet the language we use to describe this movement remains absurdly generous. We flatter these dogmatists by calling them progressive, as if they were the heirs of John Stuart Mill, Mary Wollstonecraft, or Frederick Douglass. In truth, they are the inheritors of Robespierre, not Martin Luther King Jr.

It’s time to call things by their rightful names. These are not progressives. They are anti- Enlightenment authoritarians, ideological puritans and collapse accelerationists whose policies corrode civil society, erode trust and destabilize liberal institutions. If they succeed, they won’t usher in utopia. They’ll leave behind a fragmented, cynical and fearful society incapable of telling truth from dogma.

Real progress requires moral courage, intellectual honesty and a shared commitment to freedom. That starts by refusing to surrender the language. If we are serious about defending the gains of liberal civilization, then we must stop mislabeling its saboteurs as progressives – and start confronting them for what they are.