This book examines twentieth and twenty-first-century American political discourse through the framework of progressive liberalism and neoliberalism. Progressive liberalism and neoliberalism as forms of normative reason redefine specific political concepts, which are central to American liberalism—equality, liberty, the role of the state, and the pursuit of happiness. Language is how political reason and the norms accompanying it are expressed. The text moves through Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Barack Obama, exploring shifts in language and interpretations of political concepts through progressive liberal and neoliberal forms of normative reason. A tension emerges between progressive liberalism and neoliberalism, and a heterodoxy emerges. The heterodoxy we find ourselves in continues the problem that is foundational to American liberalism itself—liberalism is inherently a theory and discourse of rights, not of need. Because of this, no form of liberalism can appropriately respond to human needs from a standpoint that is not informed by having a right to or a right from.
