> Progressives move forever farther and farther to the left, and then accuse the right of "moving right" because we didn't move to your new definition of center fast enough.
The individual mandate for purchase of private insurance + subsidy system adopted as "Obamacare" was first proposed by the Republicans and insurance industry lobbyists in opposition to healthcare reform efforts under the Clinton administration.
Today, its a Democratic achievement seen as socialism by the Right.
> -we haven't privatized schools or gotten vouchers,
Both traditional public schools and traditional private schools are losing enrollment to homeschooling and public-funded, privately-operated charters -- both of which are things that have been pushed by the right.
(The right's also unsuccessfully pushed vouchers and drastically cutting public school funding, but when your pushing for multiple and mutually-exclusive things, you can't really characterize it as your opponents winning when you get some of the things that your side is pushing for instead of the others.)
> -we haven't been able to abolish any major social program,
Well, in the 1990s you got to abolish AFDC, one of the biggest social programs in the country, and replace it with the more-restrictive TANF.
> -we have only lost ground on gun rights and religious rights,
Actually, the federal "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" and state laws modeled on it have advanced religious rights to discriminate which had previously been found to violate laws which existed prior to those.
And, on 2nd amendment rights, major advances were made by the right in the Supreme Court in D.C. v. Heller (2008) -- holding that the 2nd Amendment created a personal right in federal enclaves -- and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) -- holding that the 2nd Amendment created a personal right incorporated against state restrictions by the 14th Amendment.
> -we have not been able to slow the judicial activism of the courts,
And the left really wishes you would slow the judicial activism of your courts, such as the bizarre ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius that Congress can't set the terms for State participation in a program (Medicaid) which is otherwise within Congress power to establish.
> To a conservative of the Goldwater years the Republican party of today would look like a bunch of Socialists.
Well, we could ask a conservative of the Goldwater years about that, like the one that's the odds-on favorite to the nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States in 2016. Well, except someone did, back in 1996 (on NPR, 1/13/1996):
"SCOTT SIMON: I mean, did you ever back in the ’60s, between when — I believe you were a Goldwater girl —
HILLARY CLINTON: That’s right.
SCOTT SIMON: — and whenever you became politically –
HILLARY CLINTON: That’s right. And I feel like my political beliefs are rooted in the conservatism that I was raised with. I don’t recognize this new brand of Republicanism that is afoot now, which I consider to be very reactionary, not conservative in many respects. I am very proud that I was a Goldwater girl."