From time to time, we’ve written about the concept of obliquity, which is that in a complex system, i is impossible to identify a simple path to achieving your objectives. You do not have an adequate grasp of the terrain to do that. Thus people who seek to be happy seldom are the happiest people. Companies that focus on maximizing shareholder value perform less well on that metric than others in the same industry that have loftier, more complex goals.

Politics is particularly subject to obliquity. With the participants regularly engaging in hidden moves and Game of Thrones level sabotage (as well as more than occasional use of sexual favors), it is remarkable that anything ever done. And it is too easy to reject the validity of time-tested truths, like “Politics makes strange bedfellows”. For instance, Roosevelt’s ability to implement his New Deal program was not a downtrodden masses versus feckless elites program, as it is often simplistically portrayed. Roosevelt had the support of what were then the progressive business forces of his era, firms that had strong export businesses (the precursors of our multinationals). They were more willing to ward off the perceived threat of Communism by making a deal with labor because the high value added of their manufacturing operations gave them leeway to make economic concessions (mind you not that this wasn’t true of other businesses but companies with high profit and growth potential in a more normal environment had both more to gain and more to lose).

If one is paying attention, it isn’t hard to notice that much of the country is against our level of military spending. Members of the armed services (overwhelmingly the troops and their families, and to some degree, even the leadership) are either opposed to how US armed forces are overextended by multiple tours of duty in the Middle East or pragmatically recognize that this isn’t a sustainable strategy.

Yet despite where the weight of political sentiment sits in the US, the ferocity of Russian warmongering in the wake of Trump’s victory showed how deeply committed highly influential insiders are to keeping the military machine running on overdrive.

Anyone who opposes the US imperial project is inherently an outsider. If they weren’t one already, they would rapidly become one. Look at what happened to Martin Luther King, held in high esteem as result of his civil rights victories. The press and public sentiment turned on him when he opposed the War in Vietnam. His assassination restored his reputation; who knows if he would have been treated as well by history despite the seminal role he play if he had instead had his opposition to the war when that stance was seen as unpatriotic largely airbrushed from his record.

Another issue to keep in mind is that in battle, reinforcing success is a sounder strategy than sending resources to units that are floundering.

How does this translate into thinking about candidates? It implies that it is naive and self defeating to demand that a “progressive” or bona fide leftist candidate oppose war as a major platform position. Mind you, that it not the same as opposing hawks. And other efforts to build coalitions to oppose America’s costly and corrupt imperialism are important too. But this is a multi-fronted battle, and approaches that are useful in one arena do not necessarily translate into another. Winning in politics is first and foremost about picking winnable fights, scoring victories to gain credibility, skills, and get others to join a successful campaign, and only then moving on to more entrenched targets.

So if an otherwise sound candidate doesn’t campaign on “more war” and gives only at most tepid support, that is far more pragmatic and more likely to win against the war machine in the long run than going after it head on.

Our Marina Bart gives more detail in this exchange in comments two days ago: