Perhaps it is all Jimmy Carter's fault:

It was his (resoundingly unpopular) giveaway of the American canal in Panama, basically, that ended Progressivism in America.  I've just viewed a television documentary on how difficult it was for Carter to get the canal-giveaway treaty through Congress, wherein he acknowledges how unpopular it was with the American people, and seems to recognize that it cost him his second term in office--and yet how blandly and brightly he insists that it was "the right thing to do."  Maybe this is what my compatriots mean by "hateful Liberal."  I rather think so.  Just why the fuck was giving the Panama Canal to the people of Panama (or, rather, to the control of the utterly corrupt, tinpot dictatorship which ruled Panama) so goddamned righteous?  Jimmy Carter never explained. Although he several times, in slightly different terms, reiterated that giving the Canal "back" to the people of Panama (who had never had it) was the "right thing to do."  God help me, I'm agreeing with Ronald Reagan--and the Queen Mother Elizabeth.