Much of what I write is exploratory. It is a work in progress; an ongoing conversation with myself as well as readers of this blog.

And there’s an explanation for this: I came to radicalism and the Communist Party in the early 1970s, but I grew up politically in the last two decades of the 20^th century and the first decade of this one. During that relatively short stretch of “historical” time, two signal events took place that disrupted my safe political space. One was the rise of right wing extremism, neoliberalism, and capitalist globalization at the beginning of the 1980s; the other was the implosion of Soviet socialism a decade later.

The resulting sea change in the direction of world politics and the accompanying severe contraction of class and democratic possibilities caught me – and many others – by surprise. After all, I was radicalized at at time when the world seemed nearly infinitely malleable and relentlessly marching to a better future. “Socialism in our time” didn’t seem like wishful thinking. So when the forward march of history was abruptly halted and Soviet socialism went belly up with barely a whimper, I felt compelled to reexamine many of the assumptions and core ideas that had framed my thinking and activity.

The Good: John Boehner, Republican and House Majority leader, is leaving Congress.

The Bad: Paul Ryan, Republican and even more right wing than Beohner, is the new House Majority leader

The Ugly: Mitch O’Connell, Republican and Senate Majority leader, is still there.

I have been reminded more than once since the Democratic Party debate earlier this week that Hillary Clinton is unreliable, that she is a political chameleon, that she can’t be trusted. My guess is that people on the left said much the same and worse about Lincoln, Roosevelt, and LBJ in their time. So what’s my point? Politics and the process of social change is complex and full of surprises. And one surprise – and maybe it shouldn’t be – is that people and even presidents change, as Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Johnson did under the impact of events and visionary, powerful, and popular movements/coalitions. Of course, if the occupant of the White House is of the left that enlarges the likelihood of change and stretches out the parameters of the politically possible. But if that isn’t the case, it doesn’t automatically preclude a swing in a progressive direction by any means. As in the past, an embedded, sophisticated, and sustained movement of the “immense majority,” to use a term of Marx and Engels, can turn a so-so or even a good president into a transformative one, a facilitator of social transformations. In other words, if we do our part, that is, dramatically grow and deepen the popular movement/coalition in the period ahead, the governing posture of Hillary Clinton in the event that she, not Bernie, wins the Democratic Party nominee next August and then goes on to capture the presidency in November, could well surprise us. Again, it won’t be the first time.