I’m honestly not super clear on what “progressivism” means for him, but even so it’s pretty bad.

The speech is ostensibly bemoaning the progressive movement of the early 20th century, but the New Republic’s Matt Ford has a fantastic piece about how his history is completely wrong. Thomas claims that the American progressive movement was founded by Wilson and imported from Germany, neither of which is true. It was a reaction to corporate abuses and corrupt governance and horrific things like child labor and environmental destruction. It was an organic, grassroots movement, but Thomas says it was a top-down push to suppress individual liberties and put the government in charge of everything. That is a false, libertarian counterhistory that has no basis in reality. The justice also asserts that progressivism led to the worst atrocities of the 20th century, including Nazi Germany, Stalinism, and Mao, and draws a straight line from that to progressivism today.

I think I’ve been listening too much to a certain type of podcast recently. I distinctly remember hearing about Thomas’ early years and how he was a bastard basically from the start, but no detail.

I think he was elated that he was allowed to join the club of rich white assholes and once that happened, there was no more discrimination in the US, systemic or otherwise 🪄