Everyone living in the United States benefits from our federal, state, and local governments in many dozens of different ways, from roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, banking insurance, help for veterans, national forests, public schooling (K-12), firefighting, criminal justice, fuel pipelines, subsidies for social goods, national defense, elections, etc.

All progressives really want to add to the list is free college education and universal health care.

Of course, we would also like to see corrupt Supreme Court justices like the one shown at left go to prison, but that’s already covered in “criminal justice.”

Progressivism

Historians point to Andrew Jackson, with his butchering of the Native Americans, to the presidents immediately before and after the U.S. Civil War, and to Warren Harding as the previous “worst presidents in our nation’s history.”

Having said that, regardless of what our country’s future turns out to be, it’s virtually impossible to imagine that Trump will not come out on the top of the list.

America’s Worst Presidents

The meme here is a reminder that to call oneself a “conservative” used to mean something, other than the desire to conserve America’s racist and imperialistic heritage.

There have been conservatives all throughout U.S. history.

For some reason, our nation’s leaders at the turn of the 20th Century are probably the most notable, with TR and John Muir (national parks pioneer).

But skip ahead and you have those who have shaped environmental protection through science, advocacy, and media. Key figures include Jane Goodall (primatologist), David Attenborough (naturalist), Rachel Carson (author of Silent Spring), Steve Irwin (wildlife educator), climate advocate Bill McKibben, activist Naomi Klein, and Story of Stuff founder Annie Leonard.

What it Means to Be a Conservative