Americans often use the words progressive, liberal, and radical interchangeably, without reference to their place in our nation's history. Each of the three movements rejected older republican principles of governance in favor of an administrative state. But there were substantial differences—each movement arose in criticism of what came before.
Following the 1960s, elites on both left and right turned against the industrial middle class to erect an oligarchy at home and advance globalization abroad. Each side claimed to serve the interests of disadvantaged or underrepresented groups. Radicals ensconced themselves in bureaucracy and academia to fulfill their vision of social justice for women and minorities, while neoliberal elites promoted monopoly finance, open borders, and job outsourcing. The administrative state had become a global American empire, but the neoliberals' economic and military failures precipitated a crisis of legitimacy. In the "great awokening" that began under Barack Obama, neoliberal elites, including establishment conservatives, broke with the populist base of the Republican Party, embraced identity politics, and used Covid-19 and myths of insurrection to strip away the rights of Americans. Today, an incompetent kleptocracy is draining the wealthiest and most powerful people in history, thus eroding the foundations of its own empire.