The Regressivists come to Washington

By David Ignatius

As Theodore Roosevelt was launching his crusade to reform a stagnant government and corrupt business elite in the 1890s, he made it a test of national strength: “Is America a weakling, to shrink from the work of the great world-powers? No. The young giant of the West … looks into the future with eager eyes and rejoices as a strong man to run a race.”

Roosevelt’s Progressive movement rescued “Gilded Age” America from a predicament a bit like what the country faces today. Freewheeling capitalism in the 1890s had created gross inequality, rising anger among workers and a swamp of political corruption. Though Roosevelt was a wealthy Republican, he admonished a friend, “I do not believe it is wise or safe for us as a party to take refuge in mere negation and to say that there are no evils to be corrected.” He demanded change.

A recent Rand study argued that Roosevelt’s reform movement was a case study in how “anticipatory national renewal” can avert decline. “That is precisely the challenge that faces the United States” now, the study argued, when the country’s “competitive position is threatened both from within … and outside.” People across America agree something is wrong, and this year, voting for Donald Trump was a way for millions of Americans to register their discontent.

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My big worry is that many Trump voters want to move the country backward rather than forward. Exit polls found that 67 percent of them thought America’s best days were “in the past,” whereas 58 percent of Harris voters thought they were “in the future.” Rather than Progressive politics, Trump’s movement represents what might be called Regressivism. Or, as his slogan puts it: “Make America Great Again.”

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