Will Clinton one day run from 'progressive' too?

by Frank James

At last night’s debate, Sen. Hillary Clinton did what every Democrat has instinctively done for decades. When confronted with the word “liberal” she ran from it because of its political radioactivity.

After one of the disembodied, Big Brother-like YouTube heads on the large media screen to her right asked her to define the word and answer whether she embraced it she said:

SEN. CLINTON: You know, Rob -- (laughter) -- you know, it is a word that originally meant that you were for freedom, that you were for the freedom to achieve, that you were willing to stand against big power and on behalf of the individual. Unfortunately, in the last 30, 40 years, it has been turned up on its head, and it's been made to seem as though it is a word that describes big government, totally contrary to what its meaning was in the 19th and early 20th century. I prefer the word "progressive," which has a real American meaning, going back to the progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century. I consider myself a modern progressive, someone who believes strongly in individual rights and freedoms, who believes that we are better as a society when we're working together and when we find ways to help those who may not have all the advantages in life get the tools they need to lead a more productive life for themselves and their families. So I consider myself a proud modern American progressive, and I think that's the kind of philosophy and practice that we need to bring back to American politics. (Applause.)

MR. COOPER: So you wouldn't use the word "liberal." You'd say "progressive."

SEN. CLINTON: (Nods her approval.)

Clinton was right about the history of the word liberal and the ideas behind it. The notion of the individual’s right to be free from the oppression of Big Government was central to liberalism in earlier centuries.

Indeed, thinkers whose ideas we’d now describe as conservative-great minds like Adam Smith of the “invisible hand” of economic activity and Thomas Jefferson (“Government governs best which governs least”) were, according to Britannica.com liberals in this classic sense.

In the U.S. that changed in the U.S. in the 20th century. President Theodore Roosevelt’s actions during the “Progressive Era” of trust-busting were consistent with the primacy liberals placed on the individual over large institutions. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s took it further with his “New Deal” which created a huge new role of government in creating economic security for Americans. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society,” expanded on the idea.

As Clinton said, liberalism became associated with Big Government which became synonymous with, among other things, higher taxes. Liberalism became synonymous with the welfare-state.

Also, its commitment to individual rights meant it was a natural home for the civil-rights movement which made liberalism a dirty word in the South and some parts of the north.

The backlash to taxes, the welfare-state and civil-rights created blowback against liberalism to the point where the term liberal has become an epithet, almost the political equivalent of the “n” word. Republicans have long wielded it like kryptonite against Democrats because it works.

Thus Democrats’ refusal to embrace it and to seek a different term. They’ve landed on progressive. The way Clinton described it, it sounded a whole lot like the classic definition of liberal.

Democrats clearly believe that progressive is a far better term for marketing themselves to the American people. It has the word “progress” in it and Americans certainly like progress.

But conservatives have repeatedly proven they’re very good at taking language and recasting it to their own uses. One need look no further than “death tax” and “cut and run.”

So Democrats may now want to plan now for the day when Republicans have successfully transformed “progressive,” with Democratic complicty of course, into as dirty a word as liberal, leaving Democrats no choice but to island hop to another term.

Of course, Democrats could always take another tack. They could stand and fight for terms that once embodied the very idea of human liberty and the ideas behind the American experiment.