My mentor was Dr. Walter Bradley, a giant of a man, who rose from humble beginnings, completed medical school, earned an MBA, and became an emergency-room director locally for many years. Before my first interview with Walter, my wife and I had decided that the Quad Cites was too far from our families in Chicago and that the interview was merely practice after so many years of medical school and residency. But then I met Walter.

When Emerson College unveiled its latest Illinois poll last week, its press release included three “Key Takeaways.” At the very top of its list was this: “Fifty-two percent (52%) majority of voters think things in Illinois are on the wrong track, while 48% think things are headed in the right direction.” The college is based in Massachusetts, a liberal state with a popular Republican governor. A recent poll taken in Massachusetts by Suffolk University found that 59 percent believed their state was on the right track while 33 percent said it was on the wrong track.

What if both establishment Democrats and Republicans adhere to Progressivism, an ideology measures of magnitude different than liberalism or conservatism, while only fabricating a liberal or conservative identity just to win elections? It adds up. Progressivism advocates first and foremost that everything is political. All social and economic problems, no matter the size or scope, are best solved via government-driven political solutions. 

Progressivism concerns itself with groups and their highest functions. Progressives consider human beings to be group components, resources for groups' highest functioning.  Components of groups are tightly controlled and expendable as necessary. This is in direct opposition to the core individualism driving both classic liberalism and conservatism.  Therefore, it only follows that liberal and conservative individualism is an existential threat to Progressivism and must be eradicated.

“If we didn’t pass something, we wouldn’t have gotten anything from law enforcement. We wouldn’t have gotten a serious conversation,” claimed Representative La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago) recently about why the SAFE-T Act was originally written and passed the way it was. Representative Ford was speaking about the cash-bail provisions within the SAFE-T Act during a public event in suburban Forest Park, according to the Forest Park Review.