"Progress" toward what? Progressivism is the intentionally vague self-label of Utopianists. The entire notion is a pleasant sounding and entirely stupid dream. Everything is justified behind the idea of "future more good" while deliberately not defining 'good' and packaging every policy in a veneer of emotional reasoning and blind positivity.

The inescapable consequence of this is a derision of "standards" and unwillingness to measure their own progress by examining the real impact of the policies they've enacted. It never matters that they dreamed up and executed the most hellish programs with the most destructive outcomes imaginable (rivaling anything you could have invented that was intended to be that damaging). It never matters because they "meant well" at the time.