Activists measure progress against the standard of perfection, or at least the most perfect possible choice. Historians gauge progress against what came before it.
Jonathan ChaitOn Obamacare, every day that goes by I have more evidence that I wish I could put in my book, on how difficult it is for the Republicans to eliminate this law. They have no real alternative. They're afraid to take away health care from the 20 million people who now have it.
Jonathan ChaitOne of the things we've learned during the Obama era is how important norms are, because we've seen how the Republican Party behaved against Obama. So much of what they did was to smash pre-existing norms, which were nothing more than assumptions of how people would behave, which didn't have any real basis in rules or limits.
Jonathan Chait