Matthew Yglesias counsels progressives with advice that could apply to all political persuasions.
Matthew Yglesias counsels progressives with advice that could apply to all political persuasions.
If you’re a progressive and you feel that the political system isn’t doing what you want, it’s misguided to look at this as a personal failure of elected officials. It’s, if anything, a personal failure of you and people like you. Justice and equality doesn’t just happen because it’s nice, people need to make it happen. If it’s not happening, then its advocates are failing. And I do think there’s a lot of wisdom to the old Le Tigre song “Get Off The Internet.” Reading and talking to like-minded people about how powerful people are failing can seem like action, but it really isn’t.
Yglesias suggests two steps: write your elected representatives and talk about politics, annoyingly if necessary, in the course of everyday existence. That last bit should extend to those who aren’t particularly engaged as partisans or progressives or conservatives and it goes to what is possibly the biggest problem facing “Politics” as it presently is: the idea that there is, or is supposed to be, some separation between politics and life.