You should never use 'progressives' without sneer quotes because 'progressives' are destructive leftists who confuse change with progress.
The offensive term is mentioned in the first independent clause, and then used in the second, albeit in an altered sense. When I write that 'progressives' are destructive, mendacious, devoid of common sense, and so on, I am talking about a certain bunch of malcontents; I am not talking about a word.