Boffin very interesting!
I wouldn't say that eugenics was a core part of the Progressives' philosophy, at least not how they evolved over time (they were also very active in the civil rights movement later on, for one thing). I would not be surprised however if there were a number of people in the movement who did believe in eugenics, which was quite trendy at that time in American intellectual circles (ashamedly). There were quite a lot of Progressive extremists, including those who pushed through Prohibition.
The sort of legacy of progressivism is definitely the social justice angle. That's what I'm talking about reviving. If you say 'progressive' to an American, you think of campaigners closing down sweatshops and pulling children out of the mines and instituting food hygiene laws, all that kind of stuff.
It is interesting (and depressing!) to think that maybe some of that was done in the service of a dodgy ideology like eugenics. But I would say that aspect of it faded over time, certainly in the post-WW2 era.
Is there a way to revive that kind of idealism (sans any awful ideologies)?
I was thinking that really, at the heart of so many problems we are talking about, is corruption. Only we don't call it corruption -- it's been so normalised, it just seems like normal business practices, or normal government-business relations.
But the private sector supporting the political sector, in return for massive tax breaks and favourable policies, at the expense of ordinary citizens, is pretty much corruption in my book.
And this is the big barrier to the government doing anything to help people. Can't regulate rents, the landlords will be upset! Have to slash the budget but we can still bail out the banks, can't lose those banks! Everything gets privatised, transport, services, now health care. Tax avoidance, workfare, it goes on and on.
It's pure corruption! So maybe the first step is to start calling it what it is. And maybe somehow a movement against corruption can take off, that isn't aligned to any political party or ideology, that is simply about ending this ridiculous state of corruption and clawing back a decent standard of life for us citizens.