Ideologues Make Poor Politicians

It does not matter whether they are ideologues of the left or the right or even libertarians. An ideologue is by definition a person who believes that his or her views are the only true and correct ones. This is also true of religious ideologues or zealots. The reason why they make poor politicians and even worse statesmen is that anyone who disagrees with them is either stupid (left wing and libertarian ideologues) or a traitor (right wing ideologues). This means they cannot respect opposing views and find it extremely hard to compromise because they view this as compromising their principles.

When an ideologue gets elected to a public office, they adopt a "my way or the highway" attitude. They insist on a whole loaf of bread or none at all. The practical effect of this is that the ideological politician stands firm on principles on the deck of a sinking ship and never jumps into the compromise lifeboat. Now this is not to say that one should never stand on moral principles because some things should not be subject to compromise. A real politician knows when to stand firm and when to give a little to get half a loaf rather than none at all.

We see this syndrome all the time in politics. Some Republicans stayed home and sat on their hands because McCain was not conservative enough for them. How do you think Obama is working out for these folks? Likewise, far left Democrats are insisting on a public option in healthcare or none at all. They seem oblivious to the fact that trying to jam through something that the independents will not support is political suicide. Now some ideologues are so determined to have their way that they are quite willing to commit political suicide. In this, they are true fanatics kind of like suicide bombers only most of them are not willing to resort to violence.

There simply is no way to govern without compromise. One third of the voters are centrists and want nothing to do with either the extreme left or right. Whenever the far left or right extremists tries to jam through their agenda, the independents balk and say we are not willing to to go to that extreme. Politicians who ignore the wishes of the independents will soon find themselves on the outside looking in. If the far left Democrats do not heed this fact of life, they will be hanging those members who are in districts that voted for McCain-Palin out to dry. They will find themselves in a similar boat to the one that the John Birch Society wound up in. Whatever happened to them anyway?