Essay: Old progressives, new "right"

This essay is an original work by LT. Please comment only on the talk page.

Foremost progressive president and leader Woodrow Wilson invented the term "America First."

One of the remarkable, or rather unremarkable political transformations within less than the past decade was the shift of mainstream "right-wing politics" away from classical liberalism, individualism, freedom, and towards hedonistic government activism. At one point caricatured as the stooge of big business unconcerned with the "common people," the right soon competed with the left for the image of populism against the elites, bringing about the destruction of its old, traditional, or shall we say conservative principles in whoring after the wondrous secular civil power.

It doesn't take watching more than several segments of the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing against TikTok's CEO to see what the Republican Party has become: a sack of cloaked progressives in silly hoods. The supposed "concerns" are abused to perpetrate a naked witch hunt and provide a basis for statist repression of individual freedom, insulting citizens as idiots who must heed the advice of enlightened politicians who purportedly look out after their best interest.

Perhaps some view the government battle against TikTok as akin to the anti-Communist crusades of McCarthyism. I would argue this as a false equivalence, as cultural problems are outside the concern of the federal government. Had the State Department or U.S. Army legitimately been infiltrated by Communists, federal action would be swiftly warranted. However, the problem of societal moral decay rests solely on the incompetence of parents to protect their own children. By transferring priority responsibilities of protection to the government, parents are mocked as incapable of shielding their own children. And this is merely the tip of a massive iceberg...

Historical connections

The modern-day GOP under populism is paralleling the Progressive Movement a century ago. Read for yourself what Ohio History Central says about old Progressives:

“	While Progressives enacted numerous positive reforms, some of their goals were questionable. While they did seek to make the United States government more democratic and to protect U.S. workers, they also sought to force their social and political beliefs on others. Progressives opposed immigration and enacted several immigration restrictions during the 1920s. Progressives also tried to force immigrants to adopt Progressive moral beliefs. One way they tried to accomplish this was through settlement houses. Settlement houses existed in most major cities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were places where immigrants could go to receive free food, clothing, job training, and educational classes. While all of these items greatly helped immigrants, Progressives also used the settlement houses to convince immigrants to adopt Progressive beliefs, causing the foreigners to forsake their own culture. During the 1920s, many Progressives also joined the Ku Klux Klan, a self-proclaimed religious group that was to enforce morality, based on Progressive beliefs, on other people.	”
—Ohio History Central article on the Progressive Movement

T.R., the progressive GOP leader who wrested control of the party from the conservatives of his day and enacted numerous left-wing policies, is a prominent ideological figurehead for contemporary "right-wing" populists.

Protecting U.S. workers against foreign competition... immigration restriction... sound familiar? It's all the same blather, whether it's the old Progressives or the insurgent "right-wing populists." Also noteworthy, as pointed out by National Review, was the heaping praise fringe "right-wing" populists gave for... Huey Long, the leading left-wing rabble-rouser of the early 1930s. Anyone researching the dark rabbit hole of their media shouldn't find it hard to see their praise for Theodore Roosevelt, a leading progressive of his time who quarreled with the semi-reactionary Platt Machine ran by conservative Stalwart Republican Thomas C. Platt. In fact, there's an entire "right-wing populist" organization calling itself the Bull Moose Project; how telling!

At one point, the Republican Party stood up for freedom and liberty, which became tarnished by supposed "anti-Communism." When the Sedition Act was passed during the Woodrow Wilson, at the height of the Progressive Movement amidst rampant wartime xenophobia and fervent nationalism, the primary opponents were Republicans, one of which was Henry Cabot Lodge, an archreactionary Boston Brahmin of his time who railed against progressive "reforms." During this time period, various socialist, Communist, anarchist, and syndicalist groups alike posed national security threats, which were seized upon by Progressives to repress freedom. The instigator and namesake of the Palmer Raids, A. Mitchell Palmer, a chief Woodrow Administration member working for the president who sought "young, militant, progressive and fearless" individuals. Mitchell unsuccessfully vied for U.S. Senate in 1914 against right-wing GOP senator Boies Penrose, and regarded by numerous sources as a noted progressive leader, is remembered in history textbooks as the same supposed reactionary against leftists, yet was on the left himself! Many seeming political contradictions in the present are a direct result of drastic political transformations rooted in the ripples of the New Deal and effects of World War II, when federal government-instituted, top-down free-market restrictions and wartime price controls alienated "old" progressives, who subsequently joined forces with the right in Jeffersonian revolt.

According to the Mises Institute:

“	The FBI was in the forefront of the notorious Red Scare raids of 1919 and 1920. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer reportedly hoped that arresting nearly 10,000 suspected radicals and immigrants would propel his presidential campaign. Federal Judge Anderson condemned Palmer’s crackdown for creating a “spy system” that “destroys trust and confidence and propagates hate.” He said, “A mob is a mob whether made up of government officials acting under instructions from the Department of Justice, or of criminals, loafers, and the vicious classes.”	”
—James Bovard, June 13, 2018

The TikTok hearing

In the link above for the congressional hearing where U.S. representatives engaged in a shameful witch hunt against the organization's CEO, catching my attention were the supposed "conservative" Republicans demanding increased federal action... so all of a sudden, it's "right-wing" to demand that the government fix society's problems, which surely was an evil leftist trait? A matter revolving around individual choices to use social media suddenly requires federal action, and surely can't be solved from the bottom up?

Utterly shameful was when Republican representative Kat Cammack vilified CEO Shou Zi Chew, and evident at the 2:08:53 mark in the WaPo YouTube livestream, during which Mr. Shou requested to respond to numerous accusations, and was met with a quiet "no" and simply faced another slew of diatribes. Subsequently, GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis, in a similar manner to Cammack, assailed Shou as solely responsible for abusive platform users and hurled loaded questions and preventing a meaningful response. Evident beneath the emotionally charged rhetoric was a united front of powerful politicians in a massive swamp seeking to use the secular civil power of the United States and repress the freedoms of millions of Americans, dragging a CEO into a hearing for the sole purpose of badgering him and employing near-xenophobic tropes.

The most prevailing excuse employed, that "we must look out after the children," reeks of concern trolling. If the Democratic side were truly worried about children, would they not join the campaign against pedophiles who attempt to indoctrinate young children? And if the Republican side legitimately concerns for the plight of children, perhaps they wouldn't encourage premarital sex that results in children being brought up by morally degraded teenage bums incapable of controlling their impulsive sexual qualms.

I ought to note that I'm writing this as an individual who not at all supports TikTok. The app is filled with utter absurd perversions and degrading content, though the pernicious side in the effort to ban it cannot be simply ignored and downplayed, due to the greater symbolic significance it carries.

Final notes

Notice the prominent headlines? In our age of bitter hyperpartisan divides, there's this sudden unity in the government fight against TikTok. Perhaps this is a shadow of the events to soon come... according to the prophecy movie From Babylon to America, published half a decade ago (as of writing this essay), the United States is the second beast mentioned in the Book of Revelation. As explained by Greg Sereda of Bible Flock Box, we are currently in the last stages of the end times, due to numerous world events and patterns fulfilling warnings in the Gospels and in Revelation about the last days.

The act of Republicans and Democrats uniting together is a manifestation of syncretism, one of Satan's prominent tools. Just as Papal Rome, the first beast, formed as a syncretism (arising out of Pagan Rome in a compromise between Christianity and paganism at the dictates of Constantine and motivated by Roman antisemitism), so too will the power of the second beast be a syncretic united front. In addition, the top-down move against TikTok, flagrantly violating the liberties of millions of Americans in a country half of whose population uses the platform, is a naked totalitarian power-grab. The same U.S. government which currently suppresses TikTok will eventually persecute Christians who refuse to bow to the beast system, and current political trends are shifting towards increased authoritarianism.

Prepare yourselves for the incoming end!

“	Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.	”
—Gen. 6:11

“	For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.	”
—Matt. 24:37

“	And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.	”
—Mark 13:13

“	And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, pas they do the other Scriptures.	”
—2 Pet. 3:15–16

“	Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.	”
—1 John 2:15

“	Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.	”
—Rev. 2:10

“	Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.	”
—Rev. 20:4

Additional resources

• Amazing Facts
• Amazing Discoveries
• Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN)
• Doug Batchelor
• Bible Flock Box
• Pagan and Papal Rome by E. J. Waggoner (1888 Most Precious Message)
• 538 A.D. and the Transition from Pagan Roman Empire to Holy 538 A.D. and the Transition from Pagan Roman Empire to Holy Roman Empire: Justinian’s Metamorphosis from Chief of Staffs to Roman Empire: Justinian’s Metamorphosis from Chief of Staffs to Theologian from Avondale University
• From America 2 Babylon (prophecy movie)