One of the keys to the Schwarzenegger Miracle in California was a group of moderate Republican businessmen called The New Majority. Here’s how they’re described by hidebound paleo-con adversaries:
“They’re for principle if possible, but winning at all cost,” said Larry Smith, a Newport Beach businessman who launched a conservative political-action committee to counter the New Majority. “We’re for winning if possible, but principle at all cost.”
Smith probably thinks he’s insulted them, but the first axiom of politics is that you have to win before you can govern. While the notion of “moderate activists” sounds oxymoronic, in the long run moderates have to get energized to take back both parties from the extremists if we’re to improve the way this nation is governed, and judging by Arnie’s 65% approval rating in California, we’re going to like the results.
One of my commenters once said that the biggest thing missing from a High School education these days is a class or two on civics.
Not the Constitution, or history, but civics: the nuts and bolts of how government works.
It is too easy for people to angrily bloviate on the basis of pure unadulterated principle. I’ve done it myself. But when the rubber hits the road this is a representative democracy, and if you want real change, first things first: understand exactly how things work, not just the theory but also the reality of our institutions as they have evolved, and what it really takes to move them.