The perfect is the enemy of the good

David Frum, in 2019: 

"If liberals won't enforce borders, fascists will."

I have friends with whom I have easy and pleasant conversations with a genial meeting of the minds, who tell me they think Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were terrible presidents. "They were sellouts," they tell me. "They could have done so much more." "They compromised and implemented half a loaf, when they could have pushed through something big."

They have in mind Medicare-for-all, or some major income redistribution or child care program, something that some leftist political party in northern Europe would advocate.

I respond that Clinton and Obama never had the votes. I try to turn the blame back onto my friends. "You are at fault, not Clinton and Obama. You didn't sell it. You never persuaded the public to want it." I then drop the big bomb of arguments: "When progressives push something unpopular, not only do you not get it, you elect a con-man autocrat like Trump. You got us Trump."

Democrats got out of touch with the American public. That doesn't mean that they were "wrong" in some abstract view of the best, wisest, most ethical policy. Indeed, I think that the values American Christians say they believe-- those Matthew 25 virtues of feeding the hungry, welcoming the refugee, healing the sick -- are worth working toward. Jesus was right. But if Jesus couldn't sell those ideas to the world -- and they have remained out of reach for 2,000 years so far -- then it isn't surprising that social-welfare-oriented Democrats haven't succeeded either. People are selfish. 

Democrats neglected the problem of mass illegal immigration. They also came across as dismissive of some traditional gender roles. They left political space for a Republican to take up those issues. The political figure who did it first and best is Donald Trump. He made it GOP orthodoxy.

Opinion journalist and political commentator Matthew Yglesias described this in his Substack blog:

Were a government to come into office that cut immigration, increased prison sentences, and said vaguely encouraging things about tradwives, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. In politics, sometimes you win the argument and sometimes you lose. But if deeply illiberal people come to power and trash the basic institutions of Western democracies, that’s not just something we come back from. My sense that Trump is doing irreparable damage to the United States does not really stem from his views on crime and immigration. It’s based on his total disrespect for constitutional government, the rule of law, ethics, science, economics, and basic human decency. The problem is that while these right-wing views about immigration, crime, and gender roles are not per se illiberal, you can see why they disproportionately appeal to people with illiberal views and authoritarian mindsets. If all the elites who favor democratic institutions also refuse to supply the policy options on immigration and crime that the voters want, then voters will ultimately get those policies from more sinister types.

[Note:  "Tradwife" is slang for a "traditional," stay-at-home, baby-making woman, pre-women's liberation.]

Democratic activists should not insist on promoting unpopular positions. Respect democracy. Legitimacy comes from the consent of the governed. If progressive, tip-of-the-spear policy activists have a policy they are certain is fair and just, then they must do first things first. Don't find an electable Democrat and "hold his feet to the fire" defending something people don't like on bit, e.g. Lia Thomas winning swim meets or enabling mass scofflaw immigration. Read the room. If a politician needs to be tortured and extorted into supporting something, then progressives have failed in their duty, which is to have brought the public along to their view.

Their opponents will cherry pick the hardest to defend examples of unpopular policy choices and beat Democrats over the head with them with multimillion dollar campaigns. Of course. That is what opponents do.

That isn't some imagined outcome. It is exactly what Trump did, and the public made him our president.

If you hold the public's feet to the fire, they rebel.

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