Power is everything - and progressives forget that at their peril

[Soph0571]

It’s understanding the power of power, a truth so obvious that it should barely need stating, that is driving some battle-hardened veterans of past left campaigns to despair. “Nothing. Without power, there is nothing,” fumed James Carville, who ran the last successful Democratic effort to oust a sitting Republican president when he masterminded Bill Clinton’s victory back in 1992. He’s alarmed that some of his fellow Democrats seem to be downgrading, if not actively disdaining, “electability” as a criterion in choosing their nominee. For him it is the first, most fundamental requirement. As he put it after this week’s Iowa fiasco, the only consideration that matters is a candidate’s ability to beat Trump – because “there’s only one moral imperative and that is to beat Donald Trump”.

Of course, “electability” is a hard thing to prove for certain until it’s tested (by which time it’s too late). But the first step is to accept its importance, to recognise that winning power is the sine qua non of politics, literally the thing without which there is nothing.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/07/power-everything-progressives-boris-johnson-donald-trump|]

Emphasis mine
We saw this in the UK election. Ideology is all well and good, purity of thought is great, BUT if you do not have power it is meaningless. Labour in the UK are struggling with this at the moment. Who has the best bet of beating Trump? I don't know who that is at this point, but that needs to be the go to in the primaries, irrespective of individual ideology. Power is everything right now if we in anyway can stop the flow of far right drift in both our nations.

[genxlib]

1. It's even more fundamental than that

The theme is that electability is paramount because all that matters is beating Trump.

I say it is always the true that electability matters the most. In every election, winning is the only reward. There is only one prize. If you can't win, then you can't exercise any control towards your stated goals.

The stakes are just higher this time. But electability should always be the most important criteria in a candidate.

The only challenge is figuring out what is electable. Every cycle, I hope an obvious choice emerges from the fray. But we usually just end up with spoilers. Curse us for that.

[jrthin]

2. They forget it at OUR peril also. nt