Hello Friend is the online home of Eamonn Brennan.

But the implicit assumption of these arguments about strategy is that there is, somewhere out there, a workable strategy. That there is some way to navigate our political system such that you enact wise legislation solving pressing problems. But that’s an increasingly uncertain assumption, I think. Imagine a group of men sitting in a dim prison cell. One of the walls has a window. Beyond that wall, they know they’ll find freedom. One of the men spends years picking away at it with a small knife. The others eventually tire of him. That’s an idiotic approach, they say. You need more force. So one of the other men spends his days ramming the bed frame into the wall. Eventually, he exhausts himself. The others mock his hubris. Another tries to light the wall of fire. That fails as well. The assembled prisoners laugh at the attempt. And so it goes. But the problem is that there is no answer to their dilemma. The problem is not their strategy. It’s the wall.

Ezra Klein