Storified by Victor Infante ·
Sat, Jul 30 2016 15:44:20
I think it was Dr. Paul Latawski, my poli-sci advisor in college, who told me that politics was the science of getting large groups of people to live with one another. I've long held onto that thought, because it's easy to lose sight of, sometimes. We have a tendency to look at politics as some sort of manichean sport, with winning and losing sides. We're then disappointed when one victory doesn't solve all or even most of our problems. I never ceased to be amazed how people look at the presidency and see some sort of all powerful messiah, when in reality there's only so much even the most assertive of presidents can accomplish on their own. I think there's a sort of romance in this belief, and perhaps also a sort of laziness. The truth is, politics is something you have to work at your entire life. You don't just win a battle and walk away
Here's what I believe to be the truth of the world: Progress is measured in inches, destruction in miles. In four short years, a terrible president, even hamstrung by legislature and courts, can do an immense amount of damage, whereas, in that same amount of time, a good president can really only move us forward a little bit. There are a lot of reasons for that, but basically it just comes down to being easier to break things than it is to build them. This is also the reason why progressives lose so many more battles than we win: Because what we're trying to do is a lot harder than doing nothing.
This has been, on the whole, a good past eight years for progressives: a lot of battles won, and other issues coming to the fore where they were obscured before. I think those victories have made it easy to forget that that's not the norm, that we usually lose. Indeed, there are some progressives who depend on losing: It's easy to maintain a moral high ground when your ideals don't have to be tested in the real world. I don't have a lot of patience for this brand of liberal: I usually find them to be aristocratic dilettantes who get off on feeling superior, but don't actually have a lot of courage of their convictions. Me? I think change can happen, but I think it takes a lot of compromise and a lot of long-term thinking.
Conservatives have the luxury of short-term thinking. The argument, to pick one of thousands, that it's too expensive to expand solar energy right now is compelling to them, whereas someone of my political bent might say, "But ... in 50 years .. global warming ... yadda, yadda, yadda ..." Most of them will glaze over at your arguments. Cynically, this is because it's not affecting them right that second. That's probably not giving most of them enough credit, but it's at least partially true,.It's also at least partially true that progressives sometimes engage in magical thinking when it comes to paying for things, but even that's not always true. The point is, there's usually a little more to each other's arguments than we admit, and the fact is, no one's perspective is really more valid than yours. There are 300 million people in the United States. We'll never get that many people to agree on anything, let alone politics.
The question is: What can you live with, and what battles can you win? Personally, and I know I've said this before, I don't believe change comes from the top down. I think it happens out here in the real world, and the top changes to reflect it. Take, for example, the recent victories in the battle for gay rights. They didn't happen because of Barack Obama's beneficence. They happened because the arguments were won in the real world, and in the courts. Now, would a president Romney have been able to stop that? Maybe, maybe not. He couldn't stop gay marriage in Massachusetts, but he didn't have the full force of the religious right here.
I know it's cynical of me, but I think the best thing that can happen at the presidential level is someone not invested in trashing the joint. I disagree with Hillary Clinton a lot, but I at least understand her and her motivations. When Donald Trump tells us all the horrible things he wants to do to Latinos and Muslims, and Mike Pence tells us all the horrible things he wants to do to gays and women, I'm inclined to take them at their word. They're like the frontmen of the Legion of Doom of American bigotry.
Still, if you want real change, Clinton's victory alone isn't enough. Indeed, even Bernie Sanders' wouldn't have been enough. It takes multiple layers of action, across multiple platforms. And yeah, it takes political alliances with people you're only on the same page with on some issues. Because the only people who demand ideological purity are Nazis and other totalitarians. And seriously, fuck Nazis.
Strangely, it's the Tea Party conservatives who seem to grasp the need for long-term planning and victories in multiple arenas better than their liberal brethren. This is probably because they are largely older, and while doesn't make you smarter or a better person, it does give you a lot of experience. You eventually begin to see the importance of things like school boards and zoning boards, the unsexy races only they show up to vote for.
You know who else is old and knows things? Bernie Sanders. And Sanders is the one pushing his mostly young base into what we often derisively call "down-ticket" races.
The cynical side of me, though, thinks a lot of Bernie supporters were never really listening to him, and were only caught up in the glamour of the presidential race. But the fact is, in the time since his campaign ended, he's been laying out a really good strategy for progressive change on a National level: Support a president who, at her worst, won't stand in the way; exert influence on the party platform in order to make it the most progressive in memory, encourage people to run for office and support candidates at every level of government, and remain vocal on issues that still need outside pressure to be addressed through legislation, such as the Black Lives Matter movement. And it's exactly how the Tea Party, which constitutes a minority of conservatives, became so influential. It's big, and it takes time and attention spans, but they're winnable battles. But winning those battles means exposing your ideas and your ideals to the real world, which is the place where ideology breaks. Because there are a lot of people, and ultimately, we all have to live together.
But, seriously: Fuck Nazis.
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