Read Noah Millman at the American Scene and his theory about the difference between "liberal" and "progressive." Millman contends, basically, that liberalism is atemporal and focused on principles, whereas progressivism is context-based and aims at directly improving the future. I'm of two minds on this idea: part of me thinks that he's found an interesting distinction that illuminates a divide in the modern left coalition, and part of me thinks it's a totally false dichotomy that Millman pulled out of his ass two days ago. I may have a real opinion on that later. But meanwhile I want to question this (emphasis mine):

What I think is a fairer criticism to level at progressivism is that it does not have a strong conception of the heroic. We all know what a heroic liberal looks like - like the twelfth man who wasn't angry, and stood his ground against eleven jurors ready to convict in an open and shut murder trial. What's a heroic progressive? By this I don't mean to say, name a person who was arguably heroic who was also a self-identified progressive. Not everybody likes old TR, but he is on Mt. Rushmore and he certainly considered himself progressive. What I mean is: I know how to describe a hero in liberal terms - and, for that matter, in conservative terms - but I'm not sure how to describe one in progressive terms. Indeed, it is when you start to think about the heroic that it becomes clearest why both Ross Douthat and Jacob Levy find progressivism kind of scary: a hero in progressive terms must be somebody who can see the future better, and who has the will to push society forward towards that future. And that is not generally the kind of hero that a Republic wants.

Ahem. May I introduce:

Not exactly a bad starting lineup, eh?

I find it continually amazing -- these people are so out of touch that they really think the "progressive hero" is a difficult or dangerous idea. The American public has always been more comfortable with bold, transformative, aggressive leadership than its sniffling intellectuals like to admit -- this has been true since Andrew Jackson (who was denounced as "dangerous" by none other than Thomas Jefferson, incidentally).

Similarly, Americans hold a firm faith in constant historical progress through technology and social change, despite those same intellectuals' curious insistence that such a view of history has been "discredited". I highly doubt that most people in the United States today, "liberal" or "progressive" or conservative or fascist or whatever, dispute the idea that we should be continually improving our nation -- and that history does, in fact, propel us forward. As opposed to, I don't know, sideways.

(The exception here is of course libertarianism and its radical, atomistic view of society, which I maintain is less of an ideology than a psychosis.)

Sure, the story of most of these progressive heroes -- JFK particularly, sad to say -- is hagiography. But they are nevertheless stories that resonate. Americans like progress; and it is not by coincidence that "progressive" is the most favorably viewed political identification in America. If this is the direction our party's turning towards, a real embrace of progressivism in the sense of optimism and progress, then -- objections of the New Republic set notwithstanding -- it bodes very, very well for our future.