Flexibility has been a hallmark of great progressive and left politicians and leaders. A refusal to make any adjustments in program, demands, and organizing themes, no matter what the situation, may seem admirable on its face, but in a political and practical sense, it can easily turn into a fool’s errand and recipe for defeat. Past political leaders of a progressive or radical disposition left their mark on the times in which lived in no small measure because they were flexible and open to adjusting their positions to political realities and imperatives.

I hope Bernie is too if he wins the nomination, even if some of his supporters aren’t so disposed.

Biggest winner last night: Elizabeth Warren. I thought she killed it in many ways. Biggest loser: no contest, Bloomberg. He came up empty. Or, to use a baseball metaphor, struck out looking.

I keep hearing, and I have no reason to think otherwise. that Trump will run on the strength of a strong economy. What should Democratic presidential candidates and the eventual standard bearer do in that case. Give no ground. Challenge the claim doggedly. Provide solutions. Underneath the stock market bulge, modest GDP growth, and low unemployment numbers lie a mountain of hardship and stagnation that is the lot of tens of millions.

To think that the presidential primary is going to be la la la is wishful thinking. And, actually, if there were no acrimony, no sharp differences over policy or no divisions over who’s electable, it would be weird.

Of course, the trick is to keep the differences within reasonable bounds and thus allowing the broad sweep of Democratic voters and the electorate to join hands without rancor at the convention and into the fall.

Oscar Wilde said, “a map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.”

Much later another countryman of Wilde’s gave my generation and later ones that map when he sang “Imagine.” The song still resonates and reminds us that the politics of the present moment will limp some without a measure of utopia.

Martin Luther King at about the same time did much the same with his evocative words and imagery of a kinder, gentler, and just world — a Beloved City.

Social movements today as well as yesterday require poetry and high notes as well as practical politics. And the best politicians are ones that combine both in their person and words.

Lyrics
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You, you may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you will join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You, you may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you will join us
And the world will live as one