Progressive Party symbol

The Progressive Party of America

Congress  Jan 20, 2021 10:40 PST

In 1912, after former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt failed to take the spot as the presidential nominee for the Republican primaries, he created a third party, the “Bull Moose” party. This became the springboard for the group we know today as the “Progressive Party of America.”

Roosevelt’s newly established third party revolved around a philosophy called “New Nationalism,” an idea proposed by President Roosevelt in 1910 - two years prior to creating the Progressive Party. This ideology focused on emphasizing the importance of human welfare and improving healthcare, education, and income. The rest of the early Progressive platform stayed similar to New Nationalism, which promoted women's rights, social insurance, a national health service, and farm relief. This party also followed an ideology called “Populism,” which was about increasing the power of the people; this promoted policies such as referendums, initiatives, and recall elections. 

As the world moved forward and changed, the Progressive Party did too. In 1924, a new third party was formed under a Republican man named Robert M. La Follette, also known as “Fighting Bob.” Although at the time Follette’s ideas were considered radical, he continued to advocate for agrarianism and populism. Later on, this aforementioned group became the second Progressive Party. Soon after, another era emerged, 1948 marked the appearance of yet another Progressive Party; it was led by, for the first time, a Democrat, Henry A. Wallace. In comparison to the previous parties, Wallace’s leaned much farther left. That was due to its beliefs and hopes for social democracy, democratic socialism, and anti-war. The origin that led to this third party being farther left was mostly due to the Communist Party, specifically William Z. Foster and Eugene Dennis. Those two men were communists, who wanted to influence the Progressive Party. That was because they expected that communist political figures would soon be illegal, so they used this avant-garde party to cover their real intentions. Foster and Dennis filled the staff of Henry A. Wallace with other communists that were utterly loyal to them.

Even though many years have passed since the creation of those 3 parties, the current Progressive Party hasn’t strayed far from the previous versions. If we compare the earlier platforms to the most recent Progressive plan, the “People’s Charter” proposal, which has already been backed by one of the most well-known Progressive groups: "The Squad.” "The Squad" is a group made up of progressive politicians of colour: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, representing the 14th district of New York; Ilhan Omar, representing the 5th district of Minnesota; Ayanna Pressley, representing the 7th district of Massachusetts; and Rashida Tlaib, representing the 13th district of Michigan. Recently the Squad had grown, adding two new members: Cori Bush, representing the 1st district of Missouri, and Jamaal Bowman, representing the 16th district of New York.

The “People’s Charter” includes: “[Repairing] historic harms and [ending] systemic racism,” “[helping] everyone get and stay well, and support workers, families, and small businesses [for] as long as it takes,” “[acknowledging that] working people can’t wait years for jobs to come back, [and that] we need millions of jobs now,” “[addressing] the deficiencies in how our government cares for us that the pandemic has revealed,” and “[acting] now to make us all more resilient to challenges we know we have to confront.” 

Overall, this proposal contains many similarities and patterns to the previous platforms. They both include demands for health care, help for the unemployed, and equality. Many of the changes over time are not patterns, only because they have either already been established or are not relevant to the present day.

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The most considerable change over time in the Progressive Party has most likely been its demographics. In the past, most young people ultimately adopted their parents' ideas and views. Now, many members of Generation Z are developing their own political views. I doubt that in the 1990s, there were as many young people protesting about Black Lives Matter and/or issues like climate change as there are today. In last year’s election; many people voted for the first time, and a majority of them voted for Biden, many of whom were young people. In Georgia's senate race, nearly 116,000 voters who didn't vote in the presidential election voted in this senate race. 22% of those voters were under the age of 25. Though there has been a large incline in young people working together to improve their communities. The world has yet to change drastically for the better.

Recently, the Progressive Party has been taking more action, which has led to very much press, albeit they haven't ever sat around, to begin with. In my opinion, the Progressive Party continues to strive to better America, which may even end up impacting the whole world. I will briefly cover a few of the events that took place after the election. 

Due to the unexpected loss of house seats for Democrats, they quickly began pointing fingers and blaming one another. A couple of days after the election, interviews and questions from the press were swirling around the left-wing: asking them about their opinions on the election, whose fault it was, why the legislative branch wasn’t as successful as the executive branch, etc. One of the many interviews that took place was one by the New York Times toward the, now sophomore, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who had won her re-election by 32%. She had said that many of the moderate Democrats weren’t having enough of a social media presence and that they weren’t knocking on doors like a full-out campaign. She stated that they were relying too much on old-school campaigning as if it were 2005 instead of 2020. During this interview, she also used one of Pennsylvania’s representatives, Conor Lamb, as an example of somebody who didn’t have much social media influence. She called the moderates that blamed the progressives “sitting ducks” for not campaigning on all platforms.

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ERIN SCHAFF/The New York Times              ALEX WONG/getty images

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Before long, Lamb was also interviewed by the New York Times. He said that one of the reasons that Democrats lost house seats was because many people, his constituents at least, were “extremely frustrated by the message of defunding the police and banning fracking.” He said that those ideas were both “unpopular” and “unrealistic.” He also replied to what AOC (Representative Ocasio-Cortez) said by stating that running a campaign was not about how much you knock on doors or about your presence on Facebook but was instead about your policies. 

From the articles I’ve read and the information I’ve gathered, many of those who had progressive platforms were either elected or re-elected; not a single person who had Medicare for All on their platform lost, and only one person who supported the Green New Deal lost. Although to be fair, all those who had progressive policies and/or proposals on their platform were probably very sure that they would win. Both sides have a point in this argument: from Conor Lamb’s perspective, he sees that he barely won his re-election and that his constituents are upset about the farther left’s ideas. By process of elimination, he could guess that this is the fault of his progressive colleagues. From AOC’s perspective, not long after the election, her coworkers all begin pointing fingers at her and other progressives, saying that it's all their fault. In an interview after her re-election, she stated that a part of her didn't even want to run for re-election because of the enormous amounts of hate she gets from her party. That stacked with all the hate from Republicans is extremely hard to deal with. Thus, both Democrats have at least somewhat valid arguments. Even so, the two sides of the Democratic Party should try to stick together so that they can be efficient and spend the next two years effectively.

Shortly after this feud, things got worse for the Democrats as President Donald J. Trump refused to concede. Just like any election, all eligible Americans who wanted to vote voted, the counties sent votes to the state, and the state went either red or blue. Then, the state's amount of electoral college votes would be counted, to decide a winner. However, this year was like no other: the President repeatedly refused to accept the election results, and of course, the progressives shot back, alongside all the other Democrats. For once, the split in the party healed a bit, as they all shared one common goal: to get this man out of office. During this event, Democrats had to work extremely hard to get the message across that President-elect Joe R. Biden won, and this most likely brought them closer. 

As the Progressive Party evolves, its aspirations and plans continue to grow. In the legislative branch: consisting of the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, which together makes Congress, already contain 95 members of the Progressive caucus; ninety-four in the House, and one in the Senate. Its leader is Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington's 7th district. However, in the judicial branch, there are close to zero progressives, especially with the addition of Amy Coney Barrett. 

In my opinion, the Progressive Party having control of the judicial branch is not a priority because this branch is mainly just judges and courts; and even if a judge has a strong belief in something, they still must abide by the law. The last branch, the executive branch, is currently occupied by president-elect Joe R. Biden, who is a Democrat. However, much of the Progressive Party, mainly the supporters, are very inclined to having the position go to a different Democrat, a younger Democrat, a much more left-wing Democrat, a Democrat that goes by the name Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

Ever since she was elected, her fanbase grew tremendously, more and more people began to admire and idolize her. Not long after, many people who identify with the Progressive Party started telling her to run for president. They would say things like "AOC 2024," and "AOC for president." Her popularity rose so much that even American rapper Cardi B tweeted, "She better run for president when she turns 35." For the record, AOC never said that she wanted to be president. Only a month after AOC's first term, she was receiving death threats and tremendous amounts of hate. That's common for members of Congress, and it is utterly terrifying and horrible, imagine what it would be like if AOC ran for president. Her fellow Squad member Jamaal Bowman also commented on this, “I need the progressive movement to chill out for a second, she just got there, yo. She’s been there for two years and all of a sudden people are like she’s got to run for president?", “Calm down. She’s doing tremendous work from her current position.” AOC herself has stated, “I think it’s part of our cultural understanding of politics, where—if you think someone is great, you automatically think they should be president,” "I’m like, ‘Is Congress not good enough?’ ” I believe that AOC is a young politician that has achieved many extraordinary things, and it will always be her choice alone for if she runs for president or not. If she did, it would be great for the Progressive Party, but that should not happen at the expense of her happiness.

Something that took place relatively recently and got lots of attention, in my opinion, too much attention, was a small difference in opinion by two members of  “The Squad,” AOC and Ilhan Omar. When members of Congress were declared to take the Covid-19 vaccine before frontline workers and elderly people, the bipartisan choice of many was not to take the vaccine. This was because they said that they should not have priority over any other American, which is true. Some of those who refused to take the vaccine was Democrat Rep. Omar, Republican Sen. Cruz, and Democrat Rep. Gabbard. However, some people did take this vaccine, which includes Democrat AOC. In a tweet, she stated that "Our job is to make sure the vaccine isn’t politicized the way masks were politicized...Leaders [should] show we won’t ask others to do something we wouldn’t do ourselves." This is also true. All that happened was two different opinions, they didn't direct their tweets toward each other, and they are still friends and colleagues.

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SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

The most recent activity from the Progressive Party was their quick reactions to what took place in the capital of America. Representative Cori Bush, on the same day of the riot, introduced a resolution draft to remove all house members who challenged the election results from office. Only one day after that, the new Squad quickly acted to pursue the impeachment of Donald Trump. The Progressive Party has continuously proven its ability to respond quickly, but not impulsively, and always be prepared to defend America's Democracy.

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Regardless of where the Progressive Party is at during this time, it is still a political party that roots itself in persuasion. Each political party has its own way of growing, but in the end, every party has to persuade others to see from their views. The Progressive Party has done that well, and I believe that they will continue to grow and be fully established as a third major party.