You can't win if you don't play the game

Adding a bit to my previous post on tragically disappointed emo-progressives, the lovely Marcellina, (if you're not reading her Austrian based blog, you're a loser), kindly provides a link to this Rebecca Solnit piece on pragmatism versus wishful thinking of the emo-left.

Read it all because she's so eloquent but here's a couple of the salient points. On the accusations of the purists that pragmatic libs are ignoring, if not condoning, the unattractive policies of the Obama administration:

There are bad things and they are bad. There are good things and they are good, even though the bad things are bad. ...mentioning [the good things] does not negate the reality of the bad things.

And on why we vote for compromised Democrats instead of throwing away our ballots on protest votes:

But having marriage rights or discrimination protection or access to health care is not the lesser of two evils. If I vote for a Democrat, I do so in the hopes that fewer people will suffer, not in the belief that that option will eliminate suffering or bring us to anywhere near my goals or represent my values perfectly.

All politicians are flawed. All politicians are bought off to some extent. It's in the job description. Nonetheless, as a whole, Democrats are still the most responsive to the concerns of the left and advance our goals, albeit at a glacial pace. Republicans will not only ignore us, they will do everything in their power to thwart liberal goals and destroy any advances we've ever made in the entire course of our history.

This is not rocket science. There's plenty of time between elections to agitate for change. If you haven't built a viable third choice by the last few weeks before the casting of ballots, then the winning tactic is to install the politicans you have the best chance of persuading to your side. You won't get there by tearing those candidates down. Or by wasting time attacking your natural allies for their lack of purity.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]