YES, WE HAVE A PLAN. NO, THE PRESS RELEASE IS NOT THE PLAN.

The faucet is broken. The clinic is understaffed. The landlord has discovered a new fee. Someone in government has announced a five-year innovation strategy to explore whether water should come out of the faucet. Progressives would like to see the repair order, the patient-to-nurse ratio, the fee schedule, and the name of the official who signed the strategy before going on vacation.

We are the reform caucus within Mugwumps. We believe public institutions can be made more fair, competent, transparent and useful. That is a proposition to test, not an excuse to give every agency a larger budget because its brochure includes the word 'equity.' If the reform works, show us. If it does not, change it. If the institution has become irreparable, the Barnburners are already outside with an estimate.

Mugwumps is the movement. American Proletariat is a philosophy of labor, wealth, dignity and power that members may examine and dispute. Progressives is one of thirteen caucuses—a way of approaching public problems, not a substitute for independent judgment. No one has to agree with every Progressive proposal to participate in the movement.

PROGRESSIVES | PG

Our starting instinct: use democratic rules, expert evidence, enforceable rights and public institutions to correct problems that markets, custom and existing government have left unresolved. The goal is not government for government's sake. The goal is a life in which the institutions people pay for can perform the functions they promise.

The signature Progressive question is deceptively unfashionable: What changed for the people who use the service? How long did it take, what did it cost, who was excluded and what should we try next? A successful public program can survive that examination. A failing one deserves something more useful than a commemorative ribbon.

ROOTS · WISCONSIN BROUGHT THE EXPERTS. THE BOSSES BROUGHT THE LAWYERS.

Progressivism did not begin as a single party with one platform. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, multiple reform movements confronted concentrated corporate power, patronage, unsafe factories, political exclusion, urban health problems and corrupt government. Settlement-house workers, journalists, labor advocates, suffragists, civil-rights organizers, public administrators and politicians often shared problems without agreeing about solutions. (Sources 01, 02)

In Wisconsin, Republican Robert M. La Follette and his allies challenged railroad influence and party machinery, advancing direct primaries, taxation and regulation of corporations, and more accountable administration. The so-called Wisconsin Idea joined university expertise to legislative research and drafting. The Wisconsin Historical Society emphasizes that La Follette did not invent or implement every reform personally; scholars, organizers, legislators and later governors were indispensable. (Sources 01, 03)

The 1911 Wisconsin legislature created a workers' compensation system, factory-safety measures, cooperatives, a state income tax and environmental protections. These were legal and administrative innovations with concrete consequences, not merely a declaration that progress was desirable. Progressives in other states pursued different combinations of municipal reform, public health, consumer protection and democratic participation. (Source 01)

THE BULL MOOSE WAS NOT THE WHOLE ZOO

In 1912 Theodore Roosevelt, after failing to win the Republican nomination, led the national Progressive Party—the Bull Moose campaign. Its platform called for labor safety, social insurance, limits on child labor, women's suffrage, business regulation and conservation. Roosevelt earned roughly 27% of the popular vote and 88 electoral votes; Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the presidency. A third-party run can help reshape political discussion without winning an election. (Sources 04, 05)

Roosevelt's Progressives, La Follette's Wisconsin movement, Jane Addams's social reform networks and Black campaigners for equal rights were not politically interchangeable. Historical Progressivism crossed party and class lines and contained contradictions about democracy, expertise and who counted as a full member of society.

FUN FACT · THE STATE HIRED HOMEWORK

Wisconsin's Legislative Reference Bureau began in 1901 to provide lawmakers with research, and in 1907 added a bill-drafting service. The scandalous innovation was that legislators might have people actually read the law before proposing more law. Today that sounds ordinary; then it was a notable way of reducing dependence on private interests and partisan intermediaries for technical information. (Sources 01, 03)

There is another less amusing historical fact: parts of Progressive-era conservation and social reform embraced eugenics, racial segregation and exclusionary immigration policy. The National Park Service documents how prominent conservation figures, including Theodore Roosevelt, endorsed eugenic ideas. Calling an initiative 'scientific' or 'modern' did not make it humane. A twenty-first-century Progressive caucus must reject coercive eugenics, racial hierarchy and the fiction that an expert's credentials erase the rights of people being governed. (Source 06)

→ Explore the Vault

TODAY · REFORM IS A VERB, NOT A PERSONALITY TYPE

MAKE BASIC RIGHTS USABLE

A right that exists only on a poster is not much use to somebody standing outside a closed clinic. Progressives examine administrative obstacles to healthcare, disability access, education, housing, transportation, reproductive autonomy, voting and due process. Proposals should identify the relevant statute, responsible office, staff capacity and remedy when someone is denied a service unlawfully.

PUBLIC SERVICES MUST ACTUALLY DELIVER

If a public program promises an appointment, count completed appointments—not website visitors. If a housing program promises safe homes, count homes occupied and maintained—not press releases. If a school promises opportunity, examine learning, attendance, access and student wellbeing together. Do not use one pleasing statistic to hide five others that are on fire.

COMPETITION IS A PUBLIC INTEREST

Corporate concentration may raise prices, narrow employment choices, restrict access or turn a gatekeeper into an industry-wide toll booth. Progressives examine antitrust, consumer law, labor markets, procurement and corporate charters. Every large organization is not necessarily a monopoly, and every merger is not illegal. The evidence should establish market power, conduct, harms and realistic remedies.

THE PUBLIC'S MONEY IS NOT PRIVATE CONFETTI

Independent auditing, procurement transparency and accessible public data are essential to reform. A new agency should publish its legal powers, measurable goals, transition costs and independent evaluation schedule. If the data disappoint, improve the program. Calling criticism 'anti-progress' is how a reform movement becomes an expensive etiquette club.

ENVIRONMENT IS INFRASTRUCTURE

Clean air, watersheds, reliable energy, resilient buildings, wildlife and public land cannot be treated as decorative luxuries. Progressives evaluate climate adaptation, energy reliability, waste, land stewardship and health consequences together. A proposed data center, mine or transmission line requires a grounded assessment of benefits, water and power use, local burdens and lawful alternatives.

A BETTER SYSTEM STILL NEEDS RIGHTS

Scientific evidence and administrative expertise can guide policy, but cannot exempt government from freedom of expression, privacy, equal protection, due process, democratic accountability or meaningful consent where law requires it. A reform that helps the majority by removing the rights of a vulnerable minority needs a different design, not a better communications director.

POLICY TAGS · WE BROUGHT THE CLIPBOARD AND THE EMERGENCY CONTACTS

Civil Rights · Voting Access · Anti-Gerrymandering · Healthcare Delivery · Education · Public Housing · Childcare · Disability Access · Labor Safety · Consumer Protection · Antitrust · Independent Police Oversight · Rehabilitation · Climate Resilience · Water Infrastructure · Public Lands · Fiscal Transparency · Procurement · Data Privacy · Evidence-Based Administration

These are issue areas in Justice and the Vault, not unanimous positions on the same legislation. A caucus can favor better healthcare and still disagree about provider ownership; it can value civil liberties and disagree about the best regulatory design.

→ Explore Civil Rights & Racial Equality

→ Explore Modern Worker Voice & Bargaining

→ Explore Safe, Dignified Public Housing

→ Explore Universal Comprehensive Healthcare

→ Explore National Climate Adaptation

→ Explore Break Up Concentrated Corporate Power

→ Explore Audit Every Federal Agency

SIMILAR TO · FOUR CAUCUSES WHO ALSO READ THE FOOTNOTES

NEW DEALERS | ND

Both consider public institutions essential to material security. New Dealers begin with durable economic guarantees; Progressives concentrate on making existing or proposed services more enforceable, equitable and effective.

FEDERALISTS | FD

Both recognize that national capacity can solve problems fragmented local systems cannot. Federalists emphasize national standards and coordination; Progressives begin by testing which level of government can lawfully and reliably deliver the result.

GREENS | GR

Both treat environmental health as consequential public policy. Greens begin with ecological limits and long-term stewardship; Progressives connect those concerns to measurable regulation, infrastructure, public health and implementation.

FARMER–LABOR | FL

Both ask whether workers and small producers benefit from economic rules. Farmer–Labor emphasizes organizing, trades and bargaining power; Progressives pay particular attention to enforcement design and public-service delivery.

LESS LIKE · DIFFERENT STARTING QUESTIONS, SAME MUGWUMP TABLE

These are contrasts in governing instincts, not moral rankings, blacklist entries or permanent disagreements. A Progressive should be perfectly capable of conceding that somebody from another caucus has found a flaw in the plan.

BARNBURNERS | BB

Progressives first ask how an institution could be repaired and measured. Barnburners ask whether its structure is the problem. Their challenge prevents endless patching; ours demands proof that demolition and replacement will preserve essential services.

STALWARTS | ST

Stalwarts protect working institutions and value continuity. Progressives are more willing to alter rules in response to inequity or weak outcomes. Sometimes the evidence says change; sometimes the conservative act is keeping a reliable system intact.

LIBERTARIANS | LT

Libertarians start by questioning the reach of coercive authority and protecting individual autonomy. Progressives more readily consider public regulation and service provision, but must still prove necessity, legal limits and proportionality.

BOURBONS | BO

Bourbons begin with why an institution exists, what law permits and what the balance sheet shows. Progressives begin with a social problem and possible remedy. If the program cannot survive the Bourbon audit, it deserves a revision.

FIFTY HYPOTHETICAL PROGRESSIVES · A COMMITTEE WITH A VERY LONG AGENDA

Ten politicians. Ten celebrities. Ten television characters. Ten book characters. Ten wildcards. These are playful analogies about reform habits, not claims of membership, endorsement or political allegiance. Some are examples of useful methods; others are cautionary reminders that a well-intentioned reform can become coercive or ridiculous.

Each comparison identifies one relevant quality or conflict. No living person is represented as having signed up to Mugwumps, and fictional characters have not been given voter-registration forms. We are comparing methods, not announcing candidates or grading human worth.

01 · TEN POLITICIANS · THE HEARING WILL COME TO ORDER WHEN THE DATA ARRIVE

TEN THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS. ZERO ENDORSEMENTS. These people illustrate particular reform methods and their limits, not affiliation with this caucus.

ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE

Challenged machine politics and corporate influence through Wisconsin's direct primary, railroad reform and the Wisconsin Idea. A prototype of institutional reform, not a universally correct answer to modern policy.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Used federal antitrust authority and promoted conservation, then ran as the 1912 Bull Moose candidate. His eugenic and imperial ideas belong in the caution column, not under the rug. (Sources 04, 06)

JEANNETTE RANKIN

First woman elected to the U.S. Congress and an advocate of women's suffrage and peace. Her votes against entry into both world wars show that a representative's conscience can be politically costly.

FRANCES PERKINS

As U.S. labor secretary helped shape the New Deal's labor protections and Social Security. A reminder that detailed policy design, not charismatic speeches, builds durable programs.

SHIRLEY CHISHOLM

Challenged exclusion from political representation and ran for president in 1972. Her career invites the question of whose expertise and concerns party institutions have historically ignored.

PATSY TAKEMOTO MINK

Helped author Title IX and championed education access. A law is only as real as the agencies, schools and courts willing to enforce it.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

Signed major civil-rights, voting-rights and anti-poverty legislation. His Vietnam War escalation makes him an example of why accomplishments in one sphere cannot erase serious controversy in another.

ELIZABETH WARREN

Advanced consumer-finance oversight and helped establish the CFPB. Would ask how a borrower can challenge an unfair rule—and whether the new regulator is itself accountable.

BARACK OBAMA

Signed the Affordable Care Act, expanding insurance rules and subsidies. The durability of its protections is as instructive as disputes about costs, complexity and incomplete coverage.

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ

Advocates climate, housing and economic reforms and uses public explanation as an organizing tool. The Progressive question is how proposals become funded, legally sound and measured after enactment.

02 · TEN CELEBRITIES · THE AWARDS SHOW HAS AN OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE

TEN THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS. ZERO ENDORSEMENTS. Cultural influence and philanthropic activity are not formal public mandates.

DOLLY PARTON

Her Imagination Library distributes books through local partners. If literacy matters, make sure children receive the books; then examine who is not reached.

JANE FONDA

Uses celebrity attention to support political and environmental causes. A rally can matter, but its claims still need evidence and the actual policy should survive criticism.

LADY GAGA

Co-founded a youth-wellbeing foundation and built a major creative enterprise. An initiative has to be evaluated by services delivered, not merely the warmth of a celebrity speech.

LEVAR BURTON

Made reading accessible and appealing through television. An education policy that recruits curiosity has to connect to teachers, libraries and actual learning resources.

JOHN LEGEND

Has advocated criminal-justice reform through organized initiatives. A campaign about incarceration should still specify sentencing law, reentry support and public safety.

SHERYL LEE RALPH

Uses performing success to draw attention to healthcare and community support. Excellent example of attention serving a program; the service must still be maintained after the spotlight leaves.

EMMA WATSON

Has promoted women's education and equality through international advocacy. Visibility alone is not an enforcement mechanism, and different communities may disagree about the best policy design.

LEONARDO DICAPRIO

Supports environmental campaigns. The Progressive would ask what emissions, habitats or communities benefited—and whether the funder is held to the same standards as everyone else.

BILL NYE

Explains science to broad audiences. Evidence-based policy begins with accurate science but still requires democratic choices about values, costs and tradeoffs.

RUPAUL

Helped bring drag performance into mainstream television and commerce. The reform question extends beyond representation to contracts, credit, working conditions and who participates in the profits.

03 · TEN TV CHARACTERS · THE MUNICIPAL BUDGET HAS GAINED SENTIENCE

TEN FICTIONAL EXAMPLES. ZERO ENDORSEMENTS. Their stories illustrate habits, blind spots and warnings.

LESLIE KNOPE · PARKS AND RECREATION

Would build a park, hold a public meeting and create seventeen color-coded binders. Somebody must still ask whether residents wanted this park and whether maintenance is funded.

ANNALISE KEATING · HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER

Understands legal power but is a caution against confusing cleverness and manipulation with due process. Effective reform needs rules that bind the reformer too.

LISA SIMPSON · THE SIMPSONS

Would read the evidence, file the petition and explain the science. The lesson: expertise should invite questions, not become its own kind of superiority.

BARBARA HOWARD · ABBOTT ELEMENTARY

Keeps a school functional with professional experience. Progressives can learn that a budget and an enthusiastic principal do not replace staffing and institutional memory.

JANINE TEAGUES · ABBOTT ELEMENTARY

Energetic about improving schools and eager to organize. Needs the excellent correction that listening to colleagues is a reform method, not a delay tactic.

JEAN-LUC PICARD · STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION

Challenges orders when law and principle conflict. A well-run institution needs both trained leadership and procedures for lawful dissent.

OLIVIA POPE · SCANDAL

Can spot hidden influence and fix a communications crisis. Also demonstrates the danger of a reform process depending on private deals nobody may inspect.

DOROTHY ZBORNAK · THE GOLDEN GIRLS

Not impressed by an empty promise or a vague explanation. The benefits office would receive one withering stare and then a demand for an actual answer.

SAM SEABORN · THE WEST WING

Can make public-service ideals sound elegant. The Progressive would ask him to attach the bill text and cost estimate before the applause.

MICHAEL SCOTT · THE OFFICE

A useful warning that good intentions, excessive meetings and motivational slogans do not automatically create a competent organization.

04 · TEN BOOK CHARACTERS · THE LIBRARY HAS APPROVED A REFORM BILL

TEN LITERARY ANALOGIES. Fictional conduct is not an actual policy endorsement.

HERMIONE GRANGER · HARRY POTTER

Reads the rules, discovers an injustice and organizes. A perfect example of why knowledge matters—and why affected people must participate in designing solutions.

JO MARCH · LITTLE WOMEN

Struggles with publishing and gender expectations while insisting on authorship. Would want a fair contract and a working editorial budget.

JANE EYRE · JANE EYRE

Insists on dignity in relationships structured by wealth and position. The Progressive asks what legal and economic protections make that dignity practical.

KATNISS EVERDEEN · THE HUNGER GAMES

Distrusts spectacular official benevolence paid for by suffering people. She would demand to see what happened to the districts after the revolution.

ELIZABETH BENNET · PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Questions inherited social rank and confident pronouncements about other people's value. Useful judgment, though a new inheritance tax would complicate dinner.

MATILDA WORMWOOD · MATILDA

Exposes the failures of cruel school authority and finds supportive education. The proper reform is to build safe schools, not rely on telekinesis.

ATTICUS FINCH · TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Represents legal defense amid racial hostility. His literary portrayal is itself contested, making him a prompt to ask who actually holds power in the courtroom.

JEAN VALJEAN · LES MISÉRABLES

Reveals how criminal law can turn poverty and survival into long-term exclusion. A humane system needs fair sentencing and meaningful routes back into society.

ALICE · ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

Asks what an absurd rule means instead of accepting the Queen's certainty. Public administration should be able to explain itself without shouting 'Off with their heads!'

WINSTON SMITH · NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR

His tragedy shows what happens when state power controls facts and suppresses dissent. An enthusiastic reform agency still requires civil liberties.

05 · TEN WILDCARDS · THE HISTORIANS HAVE REQUESTED ANOTHER TABLE

TEN REAL, LEGENDARY OR CULTURAL EXAMPLES. These comparisons are not endorsements or complete accounts of their subjects.

IDA B. WELLS · JOURNALIST

Investigated lynching with evidence when official accounts excused violence. A Progressive reform begins with truthful records and protection for people who report abuse. (Source 07)

W. E. B. DU BOIS · SCHOLAR

Combined research and civil-rights advocacy; challenged discrimination using data and organizing. Statistics should identify injustice, not erase human voices.

FLORENCE KELLEY · LABOR REFORMER

Investigated child labor and factory conditions and helped build consumer and labor protections. The inspection report belongs in the lawmaking process.

RACHEL CARSON · SCIENTIST AND WRITER

Connected environmental evidence to public debate. Her example shows why independent research matters when commercial interests dispute inconvenient findings.

GRACE ABBOTT · CHILDREN'S ADVOCATE

Worked to improve child welfare and enforce protections. A Progressive would ask whether the inspector had resources and whether vulnerable families could appeal.

FRANCES WILLARD · TEMPERANCE LEADER

Organized women for public reform, but temperance campaigns also demonstrate how moral improvement movements can slide toward coercion. No one gets an exemption from civil liberties because the cause sounds virtuous.

MADAM C. J. WALKER · ENTREPRENEUR

Built a business that created opportunities for Black women and used wealth for civic causes. The Progressive asks how pathways to ownership and economic security can reach beyond one remarkable founder.

HARRIET TUBMAN · ABOLITIONIST

Risked her life to help people escape enslavement. A reminder that reform has limits when a system denies personhood; sometimes abolition, not accommodation, is the required legal end.

ROSIE THE RIVETER · CULTURAL SYMBOL

Represents women's industrial labor during wartime. The poster is famous; the real workers need credit, fair wages and protections after the emergency ends.

MISTER ROGERS · PUBLIC TELEVISION EDUCATOR

Treated children as worthy of patient, serious communication. A public media program can be humane and useful, but still needs transparent governance and reliable funding.

OUR NO-EUGENICS CLAUSE · HISTORY DID NOT GIVE US A HALL PASS

Historical Progressives advanced worker protection, direct democracy and public health; some also participated in coercive eugenics, racist exclusions, forced assimilation and restrictions on liberties. A modern caucus cannot inherit only the flattering chapters. We reject policies that treat disability, race, ancestry, sex or poverty as grounds for denying equal human worth or bodily autonomy. Evidence is not a substitute for rights.

The same principle applies to professional expertise. Data can identify a problem; it cannot authorize abuse. If a proposed intervention intrudes upon liberty, the burden of legal justification, procedural fairness and independent review rests with the state. 'It is for your own good' is not a sufficient constitutional argument.

THE CHECKLIST · NO MORE POLICIES MADE OF SLOGANS

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE FAILURE?

Define the affected people, the baseline, the statutory obligation and the strongest evidence. Do not confuse an upsetting headline with a causal analysis.

WHAT IS THE MECHANISM?

Specify the law, administrator, eligibility standard, funding source, timetable and remedy if the government fails. If the answer is 'a partnership,' name the partners and the contract.

WHO BENEFITS? WHO IS LEFT OUT?

Examine distribution by income, geography, race, disability, age and other relevant categories without stereotyping or making unsupported claims. Include people affected by the rule in its design.

HOW DOES IT SURVIVE A CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT?

Consider statutory durability, independent oversight, public records, lawful review and predictable implementation. A program that functions only with one beloved leader is a personality cult with office supplies.

WHAT WOULD CHANGE OUR MINDS?

Publish cost, service, safety and rights indicators before rollout. Set checkpoints for correction or termination. A Progressive must be able to stop defending a favorite reform once evidence shows it is failing.

EXPLORE · THIS COMMITTEE HAS MORE HOMEWORK

→ Explore Mugwumps

→ Explore All Thirteen Caucuses

→ Explore the Five Pillars of Justice

→ Explore the Vault

→ Explore Membership

SOURCES & HISTORICAL NOTES

01 · Wisconsin Historical Society — Progressivism and the Wisconsin Idea, historical essay. https://legacy.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS417

02 · Library of Congress — American Business: The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, Reformers. https://guides.loc.gov/gilded-age-business/people/reformers

03 · Wisconsin Historical Society — The Progressive Era: 1895–1925, labor, tax and administrative reforms. https://legacy.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS3588

04 · National Archives — Political Cartoons Illustrating Progressivism and the Election of 1912. https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/election-cartoons

05 · American Presidency Project — Progressive Party Platform of 1912, historical primary source. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/progressive-party-platform-1912

06 · National Park Service — Complicating Conservation, eugenics, racial exclusion and Progressive-era conservation. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/complicating-conservation.htm

07 · Library of Congress — Progressive-era reformers including Ida B. Wells and Jane Addams, research guide. https://guides.loc.gov/gilded-age-business/people/reformers

08 · Wisconsin Historical Society — Wisconsin and the Republican Party, La Follette's reform movement and later splits. https://legacy.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS406

09 · Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library — The Bull Moose Platform: Progressive Party of 1912. https://www.trlibrary.com/tr/post-presidency/bull-moose/platform

10 · Social Security Administration — Social Insurance Movement and the 1912 Progressive platform, historical archive. https://www.ssa.gov/history/trplatform.html

WE ARE ONE.  ·  E PLURIBUS UNUM.