Liars Read Free Page A

World War I to censoring “offensive” speech on today’s college campuses. It never ends, the same cycle of fear on the one hand and salvation-can-be-yours on the other.
    The three parts of this book will present progressives, from the left and the right, and help you understand them—their stories, experiences, and motivations—more deeply and completely than any book has done before.
    Part I discusses the history of the progressive movement in America from the early days of William Jennings Bryan through four pivotal “waves” of progressivism led by Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Barack Obama. It also includes profiles of some key figures during those eras who adopted the damaging progressive mindset as a means to protect themselves from personal traumas. For example, you’ll see how the deep depression and losses that Eleanor Roosevelt suffered as a child emboldened her to supporta movement that hoped to bequeath to all Americans the parents she never had.
    Part II examines some of the lies that progressives like to tell would-be recruits, for example, that progressivism means being open-minded and supporting freedom and diversity.
    Part III discusses the future of the progressive movement while also laying bare its playbook. Most important, it gives us a road map for how to finally wake people up and convince them that fear is their friend. It doesn’t need to be defeated—especially by lying, power-hungry politicians—it needs to be harnessed.
    The saber-toothed cat may look a lot different today from how it looked seven million years ago, but it can still be defeated in the same way: not by cowering in our caves but by pledging our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to one another. Reliance on our creator, ourselves, our families, and our communities is what’s kept people safe and hopeful and happy since the beginning of time. Putting your faith in government and politicians instead is chasing fool’s gold.
    I hope that by the end of this book, you’ll realize that FDR was mostly right but he left one important thing out. There is nothing to fear except fear itself . . . and the progressives who exploit it.

1
Roots:
Hegel, Marx, and the Making of Heaven on Earth
    Looking into the future we can contemplate a society . . . in which men shall work together for a common purpose, and in which the wholesale cooperation shall take place largely through government.
    We have reason to believe that we shall yet see great national undertakings with the property of the nation, and managed by the nation, through agents who appreciate the glory of true public service, and feel that it is God’s work which they are doing, because church and state are as one.
    â€”EARLY AMERICAN PROGRESSIVE RICHARD T. ELY, 1894
    Chicago Coliseum
    July 9, 1896
    Moses ascended the mountaintop.
    Mount Sinai was the podium rising above a sea of delegates. The two stone tablets decreed that the U.S. government’s monetary supply be backed with reserves of silver instead of gold, along with a zealous commitment to heal the wounds that America’s “onepercent” had inflicted on everyone else. Greedy idolaters had worshipped capitalism’s golden calf for far too long.
    That’s why God, in his infinite mercy and wisdom, had finally sent a prophet.
    Thirty-six years old, his name was William Jennings Bryan.
    The seething mass of humanity inside Chicago’s enormous, brand-new coliseum looked up at Bryan, the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States, whose imposing height, massive head, aquiline nose, and piercing brown eyes made him a striking figure. As Bryan held forth on the Democrats’ proposed national platform, they shouted and cheered,frantically waving red bandanas in a sign of solidarity with the global workers’ movement that had been sweeping Europe for decades.
    For the first time