sólo con una ardiente paciencia

At last! I knew I read some statement from Tony Kushner that crystallized, or maybe catalyzed, the way I thought about electoral politics while I was living in DC. But at that point in my life I had like an IV connection to the news so it was hard to retrace my steps and pinpoint where I had read this passage when I found I wanted to reread it months and then years later.

But now, through the wonders of Google, I have found it. It's from a interview Kushner did with Mother Jones in 2003, when Angels in America was being produced for HBO and the country was gearing up for a presidential election year, much like we are now.

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 system isn't about ideals. The country doesn't elect great leaders. It elects fucked-up people who for reasons of ego want to run the world. Then the citizenry makes them become great. FDR was a plutocrat. In a certain sense he wasn't so different from George W. Bush, and he could have easily been Herbert Hoover, Part II. But he was a smart man, and the working class of America told him that he had to be the person who saved this country. It happened with Lyndon Johnson, too, and it could have happened with Bill Clinton, but we were so relieved after 12 years of Reagan and Bush that we sat back and carped.

In a certain sense, Bush was right when he called the anti-war demonstrations a "focus group." We went out on the street and told him that we didn't like the war. But that was all we did: We expressed an opinion. There was no one in Congress to listen to us because we were clear about why they couldn't listen. Hillary Clinton was too compromised, or Chuck Schumer -- and God knows they are. But if people don't pressure them to do better, we're lost.

I cried a little when I watched this speech today from Senator Obama, but I am also keeping this in mind: A lot of Americans might like the idea of an Obama presidency because they feel like somehow his election would represent a redemption for this country, from recent wrong turns and ancient and current injustices. But no individual politician can sit on a pedestal, nor should she or he be expected to. Change does not just come from an election, it comes from the work of many, and a great leader is one who inspires citizens to do that work. If there aren't any great leaders to be had at a given moment, election, congressional session--the work remains. The work can have unexpected and inspiring consequences.