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Pragmatism They Can Believe In?
Ross Douthat — ... an example of how this works in practice.) The President-elect's ability to hold his coalition together, then, may depend in no small part on whether the Democratic Party's left wing feels that it's getting enough out of his Presidency in practice to justify playing the bad guy in the narrative Obama will be selling to the country as a whole, in which post-partisan "whatever works" pragmatism triumphs over ideologues of the left and right alike. Update: Reihan weighs in here.

Pragmatism, Viewed Pragmatically
Opinionator — ... his coalition together, then, may depend in no small part on whether the Democratic Party’s left wing feels that it’s getting enough out of his Presidency in practice to justify playing the bad guy in the narrative Obama will be selling to the country as a whole, in which post-partisan “whatever works” pragmatism triumphs over ideologues of the left and right alike. And Douthat’s “Grand New Party” co-author, Reihan Salaam, writing at the American Scene, appreciates Hayes’s point but isn’t sure we have enough evidence to judge the case. Of course, Obama established his ...