No ideals
: Scott Rosenberg finds acidly practical political advice from Tony Kushner (Angels in America) in Mother Jones:
Kushner: Listen, here’s the thing about politics: It’s not an expression of your moral purity and your ethics and your probity and your fond dreams of some utopian future. Progressive people constantly fail to get this. The GOP has developed a genius for falling into lockstep. They didn’t have it with Nixon, but they have it now. They line up behind their candidate, grit their teeth, and help him win, no matter who he is.
Jones: You’re saying progressives are undone by their own idealism?
Kushner: The system isn’t about ideals. The country doesn’t elect great leaders. It elects f***ed-up people who for reasons of ego want to run the world. Then the citizenry makes them become great.
