Progressive: prə-‘gre-siv 1 a: of, relating to, or characterized by progress b: making use of or interested in new ideas, findings, or opportunities.

That’s how Merriam-Webster defines “progressive.” Progress? New Ideas? It seems to me the “progressive” policies are having the opposite effect on our society.

Race

It was March 1965 when Martin Luther King led the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. I was 12 years old at the time and remember it well. I can still remember a few segregated bathrooms, and that was appalling to me, even as a kid. The idea of a right to use a bathroom — or anything else — based on the color of one’s skin seemed so wrong.

We’ve made so much (real) progress since then. The White House, that was built in part with black slave labor, became the residence of the first African-American president on January 20, 2009. African-Americans began to rise to the top in every facet of our society, including Congress, CEOs of major corporations, sports, media, spiritual leaders, and entertainment. Other than a few “crazies” that will always be present in any society, we as a nation had gotten to the place where most folks didn’t think anything about the color of one’s skin.

Now, after all that progress, the “progressive” movement is throwing that all out the window. By pushing Affirmative Action, CRT, and racial “equity,” they are taking us back to the 1960s where everything is about the color of a person’s skin.

Joe Biden said of African-Americans just last week during a White House movie screening, “Their crimes? Trying to vote. Trying to go to school. Trying to own a business. Trying to preach the gospel … Lynched for simply being black, nothing more. With white crowds, white families gathered to celebrate the spectacle … And some people still want to do that.” What an outrageous comment. Talk about knocking the scab off a wound that was almost healed.

Tolerance

In 2015, Pew Research Center conducted a survey in 38 countries and found that “Americans were among the most supportive of free speech, freedom of the press and the right to use the internet without government censorship.” In other words, the survey suggests that the U.S. had become the most tolerant of views that were not like their own.

I was not able to find a current poll by Pew, but it’s undeniable that in recent years the “progressives” have become the least tolerant people in our country. Their idea of “tolerance” is that all the rest of us are to be tolerant of their views. But they demonize us for any view or speech that’s different from their own.

Look at what’s happened in social media and mainstream media in just the last few years. They (arguably) threw a presidential election by censoring the views they didn’t like. They are even intolerant of basic truths like saying there is a biological difference between a man and a woman. Like Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in her brilliant Republican’s response to Biden’s State of the Union address, everything has come down to “normal or crazy.” And they have even become intolerant of “normal,” and it has set us back many years.

Medical Science

The Ebers Papyrus was written in about 1500 B.C. by the Egyptians, and it reveals some 700 remedies they used for various ailments. Here are just a few examples:

• Splinter wound: Blood of worms mixed with donkey’s dung.
• Hair loss: Fats from horse, crocodile, cat, and snake mixed with crushed donkey’s tooth and honey.
• Constipation: Zizyphus bread, gurma, cat’s dung, and wine.
• Curing baby of excessive crying: poppy seeds and fly dung from the wall made into a paste, then strained, and drank for four days.

Wow. We’ve come a long way, baby.

But now the progressives are setting us back even in our medical science, and not just decades, but all the way back to the days of the Ebers Papyrus in some ways. They are profiting off of the gender confusion of our young people, performing irreversible procedures. And there’s no more science in that than giving someone “blood of worms mixed with donkey’s dung.” In fact, it’s much worse. At least the remedy of the Egyptians probably wouldn’t hurt anybody.

Noah Webster’s Compendious Dictionary, first published in 1806, was the first American dictionary. On page 352 is this simple definition of woman: a female of the human race. Now, the “progressives” have taken us back to before 1806. They can no longer define woman.

Moreover, they abandoned the science during COVID for political advantage. There was hard data from world-renown doctors that showed Hydroxychloroquine was an effective treatment. But because it helped then-President Trump recuperate from COVID, which prompted him to speak favorably of it, there was a war on the drug by not only the liberal media and politicians (which might be expected), but also the liberal medical professionals. They did the same with Ivermectin, which was also found to be an effective treatment. The progressives were willing to go on TV and prescribe something far less effective for a political edge. They might as well have told them to take “poppy seeds and fly dung,” And many of our citizens tragically died as a result.

Back to the Days of Billy the Kid

By looking the other way and even encouraging the George Floyd riots, as well as defunding and “re-imagining” (whatever that means) the police, these “progressives” have moved us in a retrogressive manner back to the lawlessness of the days of Billy the Kid.

In Biden’s first year in the White House — with control of the House and the Senate — more police officers were killed in the line of duty than in any year since 1995. Moreover, more than a dozen U.S. major cities set new homicide records. We’re seeing footage on the news channels almost every day of thugs cleaning off shelves in retail stores in broad daylight. It feels like we’re back in the Wild West. And if a few are arrested, they are turned loose by the liberal DAs.

Electric Cars

The progressives want us to believe electric cars are the wave of the future. The photo above is of two electric cars from more than a century ago. The concept failed. I’m not anti-electric cars. Heck, I don’t care if they come up with a car that utilizes a hamster on a wheel if it can compete in price and functionality in our capitalist economy without the government playing favorites through subsidies. But the industry hasn’t just taken the concept back to the early 1900s to give it another shot in the name of “progress.” It has rolled back the supply chain techniques for some of those components by more than 100 years. It’s heart-wrenching to see images in the Congo where forced child labor is mining for cobalt for the EV batteries.

“Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth.” (Isaiah 43:18-19) Now, that’s real “progressivism.”

Nolan Lewallen is a retired pilot of a major airline and lives near Stephenville, Texas, with his wife, Kim. Nolan’s two greatest passions are the Bible and politics. His latest book, The Integration of Church & State: How We Transform “In God We Trust” From Motto to Reality, brings the two together.