2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: When waging a 'revolution' against the Democratic establishment, what stays in, what should go? [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)"Still, there are some currents in our political life that do run through both parties. And one of them is the persistent delusion that a hidden majority of American voters either supports or can be persuaded to support radical policies, if only the right person were to make the case with sufficient fervor.
You see this on the right among hard-line conservatives, who insist that only the cowardice of Republican leaders has prevented the rollback of every progressive program instituted in the past couple of generations. ...
Meanwhile, on the left there is always a contingent of idealistic voters eager to believe that a sufficiently high-minded leader can conjure up the better angels of Americas nature and persuade the broad public to support a radical overhaul of our institutions. ...
But as Mr. Obama himself found out as soon as he took office, transformational rhetoric isnt how change happens. Thats not to say that hes a failure. On the contrary, hes been an extremely consequential president, doing more to advance the progressive agenda than anyone since L.B.J.
Yet his achievements have depended at every stage on accepting half loaves as being better than none: health reform that leaves the system largely private, financial reform that seriously restricts Wall Streets abuses without fully breaking its power, higher taxes on the rich but no full-scale assault on inequality.""
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/opinion/how-change-happens.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0