I am a pragmatist, in part, because I'm sick of waiting. So, too, it seems many progressives think the same way.
I have lived my entire life at the point of greatest vulnerability, and have personally seen the toll that Republican policies have taken on the middle class. If I prefer to accept relatively smaller victories to get them done now, if I prefer to support getting things done now, it's mainly because I don't want to wait on an uncertain political effect to start that policy rolling.
If I am not as disappointed as some are with Obama, it's because he's done what I wanted him to do, to move Liberal policy at a faster pace than it's moved in literally decades, to place our marker at the table. If I am angry, understand I am angry with anything and everything that I view as a setback to this continued forward motion. Not you, personally.
But I guess some of you are the same way. The funny thing is, that considering it, I don't think we're all that far apart. Neither side may be wrong.
I do some screenwriting on the side, though, and one thing I've been taught is that conflicts are strongest not when they're about good vs. evil, but when you're forced to choose between the lesser of two evils, or two irreconcilable goods.
I think the crux of this disagreement is that we're both seeing incomplete portions of the same truth. It's not either we push for the strongest possible bill or we end up accepting whatever legislation we can get passed. Or at least, it doesn't have to be.
Can we all agree that both would be good? That it would be better to push for the best we can get, and then not waste the opportunity to stake out that much more forward progress in a substantive form?
If you are not satisfied with what we got on HCR or Wall Street Reform, let me let you in on a little secret: many of us pragmatists aren't, either. You remember that scene from The Shawshank Redemption?
What Andy Dufresne did sums up my basic philosophy.
Essentially, you don't stop pushing. You don't stop fighting. And if things get really bad? Well, you chip through every wall and you crawl through 500 yards of crap so you can come out clean on the other side.
We don't let up. We don't stop asking or stop insisting. We don't stop fighting until we get what we want. My philosophy insists on getting intermediate results. That's basically the big difference between me and some. Why do I take that attitude?
Because I've had to take the crap that the Republicans have been shovelling for my entire life. I want the system that took me and my family from a somewhat comfortable life when I was a kid to constant struggle and heartbreak as an adult. I would be doing much better in my life if it weren't for the policies Republicans put in place.
So what I want is constant pressure, consistent results. I am willing to endure a lot of crap to get it, if I think I'll get what I want later as a result, but my patience with the status quo ran out long ago.
Understand that, understand that people like me are as motivated as you are, and then you'll understand why I call myself both progressive and pragmatist without thinking of it as a contradiction.
Progressives, Liberals, Democrats, policy change, pragmatism, intermediate results