General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "Making the perfect the enemy of the good." [View all]JHan
(10,173 posts)If there is no understanding of how this difference plays itself out in less than ideal circumstances, you get nothing done which means you fail your constituency because you lack the political skills to get people who disagree with you to say yes on important legislation to further your agenda.
That's the ugliness of governance, it's partisan, it's conflicting and you have to work with those who have sincere disagreements with you, people you may have to meet halfway.
.....it exists on the left too. I'll use an example: I prioritise k-12 over "free college" - if I were in a position to have influence over priorities in education, I would focus on the former than the latter ...if I had to work with other liberals on education who wish to focus on the latter, I'd have to meet them halfway on education policy that manages to ease debt burden for students, expecting them to also see my point of view in turn. EDIT: And I may also want to focus more on why tuition costs are high, rather than Government continually meeting those costs- would that make me an enemy? Maybe we get to "free college" as some would envision it in the future, but in the interim, you have to prioritise investment. And yeah, I know America's defense budget is bloated to bursting but you won't get the drastic shifts in priorities overnight and you still have this important job to do: meeting the needs of your constituents.