[gherkin0]

Can you really make much of a statement about the modern "progressive movement" by talking about Theodore Roosevelt? While they both used the "progressive" label and perhaps one descended from the other, there's about 100 years of significant social and political change between them.

[ewzimm]

I think you understand my point. I was talking about the roots. Roosevelt was already distinct from the mainstream Progressives, but he wasn't afraid to say he thought they had some good ideas because he understood he had a lot of the same goals and that they could find common ground. Most Republicans and Democrats in the USA could be part of the same political party in other countries, but here they hardly even talk to each other.

Glenn Beck is acting as if Progressives would naturally be anti-business, but the movement, even the modern movement, is based on improving business conditions. Of course other areas too, but it has a big focus on people's jobs because that's where they spend their time.

It started out to address the concerns of the left while also standing against socialist ideas. You could say it's like the Open Source movement that saw the Free Software movement as a little too anti-business and wanted to pursue a similar agenda while not coming out too hard against business as usual.

Conservatives and Progressive have a lot more in common that I could get into here, but that's not the point. It's that Glenn Beck knows a lot of Democrats are pro business and pro tech and acts as if he doesn't understand how it could be possible. He's just playing dumb.