Progressivism is a moderate form of Moral Liberalism. In the United States, the term liberal has been used to describe the political left, and conservative the right. Since at least the late 1990s, the term progressive has been used to describe certain leftist views of one form or another, for at least two reasons: To create a contrast between center-left and farther-left politics, whereby liberal describes the center-left while progressive designates the far-left. To find a term with positive connotations as the term liberal has taken a pejorative meaning in the mind of some Americans