Playing to win

Gaius Publius at Americablog writes:

I asked, "What if we played to win?" Now I'd like to ask, What would playing to win look like?

The meta answer is, it would look like it looks on a championship college football team (college teams, like political movements, are staffed with volunteers). Or, as new coach Brian Kelly of the up-and-seriously-coming Fighting Irish calls it, "the physical and mental toughness" to play the whole game hard.

What would that mean for Progressives? For starters, it would mean not apologizing when someone says we're not "nice". That's like apologizing for winning.

But let's get specific. What would it mean to play the whole game hard?

(1) How about not whining about the Republican Supreme Court's implementation of Citizens United — and instead starting to use it until they start whining? How about rounding up a couple of committed left-wing billionaires (they must exist), and lobbing some of our big-money grenades over the electoral wall, until they start crying about the rules?

(2) And while we're waiting, how about recalling every Wisconsin Republican state legislator we can get our retributional hands on — there's already a move afoot to do that — and then not stoppinguntil they all drop to the floor.

Not stopping matters. Last I heard, the Wisconsin unions were asking for a seat at the table.

Wrong. We will get a "seat at the table" when the recall move starts making them scared. That's exactly when you "not stop." When they're gone from the legislature — that's when you've won. You stop when you've won.

And that's what playing to win looks like. You stop when you've won.

In my very humble opinion, of course.

In my humble opinion, I agree.