what is pragmatic?
I have been reading Paul Krugman about how we need to go to Clinton because she can be pragmatist. It is funny coming from someone that chided Obama about not asking for a big enough stimulus, or for being too willing to work with Congress. Another aeticle (the fourth of fifth to be named "the audacity of nope" basically says that Obama was an idealist, and now Hillary will go ahead and be practical.
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/28/10858464/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-political-realism
'The argument for Clinton is that she's best suited to handle this war of partisan attrition — she knows how to work the bureaucracy, defend against a hostile Congress, and find incremental gains where they exist. This is a realistic vision of a Democratic presidency after Obama. It's a vision, as best I can tell, that's shared by Obama. But it's not a vision liberals want to believe in. It's not a vision that Hillary Clinton has figured out how to sell. Perhaps it's not a vision that can be sold.
Bernie Sanders's vision of politics may be less realistic, but it's a vision suffused with hope. And there's never been anything audacious about asking voters to hope."
Now that I have laid out two examples of what some call "pragmatism" let's scrutinize this. Yes, the GOP would probably find Clinton easier to work with, even as they keep fishing up material for an impeachment. However, while there were a lot of ugly, nasty choices Obama and Clinton made, the fact is that the very right wing 2016 congress is exactly the reason why trying to be "pragmatic" can be the least practical thing.
The fact is, thanks in no small part to the failure of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the GOP is at a point where they do not need to pretend to listen. Donald Trump has done things that, even in 2008, would have been political suicide, but only make him stronger. Trump is not the exception, as Ted Cruz, someone who is considered too extreme by many GOP, is a hot number two behind him. The conservative base, unlike the liberal one, fully expects to be let out of the attic and march right into the Oval Office, and sorry to say, Trump and Cruz represent the fact that they are getting what they want, even if Jeb Bush is about to faint. The right wing media (which never could have gotten so big without that "practical" gutting of the telecommunications act) is stronger than ever; you have media networks like OAN and Newsmax which purposefully report to the RIGHT of Fox news. Even MSNBC leans right, Rachel maddow notwithstanding. Of course, after Citizens United, the billionaires know they can just pump dollars into any idiot and buy a puppet. Many Congressfolk will see the example of Trump and Cruz and say "why dammit, I AM being practical, the more of an ass I make of myself, the more money I get!"
So, if the virtue of Hillary is that "she can get things done because she is practical" we have to be clear about what we mean. As shown with the Telecommunications act, a lot of things that seem practical short term are disasters long term. Add to this that we have one party that frankly, no longer needs to pretend it is practical, and you have a disaster. Add to this the idea that Hillary and some supporters really agree with the idea that a lot of programs need "reform", and you have a recipe for even greater disaster, as the negotiators walk into the room ready to give the other side concessions, without even thinking that the GOP does not merely want to divide a loaf, but they want to break the whole damned bakery because they think starving people is a virtue.
Yes, pragmatism is a virtue, but those who wish to keep the current problems always manage to cloak their motives in a false pragmatism, based on short term victories. There were practical folks which said we should never even think of rebelling from England. Was it pragmatic to keep kicking the can on the issue of slavery? On the right of women to vote? On fighting Jim Crow, or the issue of LGBT marriage? Now, we can look and say no, and that the delay in action wound up being anything BUT practical, but read back on those issues, and you will hear the self proclaimed "pragmatists" explain very clearly why ALL those ideas were impossible. The fact is, while we want to be practical, it is also pragmatic to realize that whatever gains we have made are because a barrier that was assumed to be unbreakable turned out to be much more vulnerable than the practical types said it was. The reason the "sensible people" said these walls were indestructible is because they had perched their nests at the top, which was a very practical way to keep their rears warm and dry.
However, let's attack one more sensible idea: "look, Bernie won;t be able to pass half the stuff he wants!" OK, let's grant that...at the very least, he would offer RESISTANCE, and be reluctant to go into that back room faux "negotiation" which is where the practical GOP types know THEIR GAINS are made. Compromise is supposed to be where two people split a loaf rather than starve, but the false compromises that the GOP offers are where they give you a crumb and poison it so they can loot your corpse. Even Moderation needs moderation, and being so willing to bargain that you walk right into a rigged Casino/ambush is nto pratical either.
AND BTW, no I do not hate Hillary, indeed, my beef with her is that , in a very UNPRACTICAL way, she is surrounding herself with the same idiots that crashed her 2008 campaign so badly, especially DWS. If Donald Trump can pretty much run in such a manner that he tells a lot of his GOP people to go jump in a lake (which is why the independents love him) why can;t Hillary tell DWS and Mark penn to shut up, let her get on debate television, and shine? It would be one thing of DWS had a winnign track record, but she does NOT.