I’m reading a gangbusters book review by EJ Dionne. This passage really grabbed me:
the historian Michael Kazin has it right when he argues that American progressives have succeeded in improving the “common welfare” only when they “talked in populist ways–hopeful, expansive, even romantic.” Kazin cites the line popularized by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “March without the people, and you march into the night,” adding, “Cursing the darkness only delays the dawn.”
I think this is totally right. I think it’s time to take a more positive tone to my writing and action regarding Brandeis – emphasizing a great future we can reach, not cursing the “darkness” that exists right now.
look at the tea party. obviously a politics of spite works wonders. haters gonna hate.