Adrian Wooldridge, Columnist

The Arc of History Does Not Simply Bend Toward Justice

Progressives preach the triumph of progressivism even as strongmen dig themselves deeper into power across the world.

April 29, 2025 at 4:00 AM UTC

Adrian Wooldridge is the global business columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former writer at the Economist, he is author of “The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World.”

Protesting.
Photographer: BRYAN DOZIER/AFP

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Ronald Reagan was wrong. The nine most terrifying words in the English language are not “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” They are: “The arc of the moral universe bends towards justice.”

This is a pretty phrase that was invented by a good person, Theodore Parker, and revived by another good one, Martin Luther King Jr. But it’s terrifying because it produces unjustified confidence that history is on your side, and this has consequences. Donald Trump might well not be in the White House if progressives hadn’t been so convinced that the moral universe was bending in their direction.