The End of the Progressive Era?

The people of a nation that has experienced
unprecedented peace and prosperity for an extended period of time are often
lulled to sleep, believing there will never be an end to their good fortune.
Many powerful countries throughout history have floundered and decayed as they
gradually descended into chaos, not realizing the ultimate fate that awaited
them. However, the United States has been granted an opportunity to escape this
fate through what appears to be a long-term disaster potentially turning out to
be its long-term salvation. That event is the election of Barack Obama as
president.

Over the past fifty years, regardless of who was in
the White House or in charge of Congress, no one has been able to halt the
incessant spread of left-wing radicalism in the nation's institutions, as well
as the exponential growth of a federal government with its tentacles
increasingly intertwined in the day-to-day lives of all Americans. As long as
the people remained largely disengaged, the potential damage to society as a
whole and to the financial health of the country was unknown to the vast
majority of the population.

The unplanned circumstance of a Democrat supermajority
in Congress and a leftist president came about decades before the strategy of
gradualism, begun in the 1930s, would have more easily achieved the same
objectives. The primary aspect of this strategy was straight out of the
socialist/progressive handbook. that is to create a demand for
subsistence and dependence on a powerful central government under the mantra
that a country so wealthy and prosperous owes its citizenry an ever-expanding
social safety net, all the while subtly altering the historic relationship
between the people and the government, as a greater percentage of the population
would become dependent on the largess of those in control of
government.Additionally, beginning in the late 1960s, the left
began to aggressively infiltrate the media, the entertainment complex, the
education establishment, and government bureaucracies. The ultimate prize was
the control of a major political party while indoctrinating the populace with
anti-American and pro-socialist dogma. By the mid-1980s, they succeeded in
dominating these sectors of the American ruling establishment, and as of 2008,
they achieved control of the Democratic Party.

However, they have had less than thirty years, and
only one generation to program with their failed and self-serving philosophy.
That is why over 40% of the electorate still
identifies as conservative while only 21% self-identify as liberal (moderates
make up 35%). In fact, since 1992, conservative identification has increased
from 35 % to 40%, while the liberal identification has increased only from 18%
to 21%. Assuming that half of those who consider themselves moderates lean
conservative, then conservative leaning moderates and conservatives combined
would account for 58%-59% of the population, confirming that the United States
is a right-of-center country.

The basic character and beliefs of the majority of the
American people have not been significantly altered. While the timing may have
been in place to have Barack Obama elected president while pretending to be
moderate, the timing to turn the United States into a bastion of socialism was
not. The infiltration of the various institutions by the left and the creation
of a preponderant dependent class have not been underway long enough to change
the character of the majority of the population.

In essence, Barack Obama's presidency coupled with the
left-wing dominance of the Democratic Party with a congressional supermajority
occurred too early in the history of the nation for the left to achieve their
objectives.