The Art of the Possible

Paul Krugman on politicians' failure to enact sensible policies because they are politically "unfeasible":

If politics rules out all effective responses, there will be no effective responses.

Megan McArdle looks at the same issue and concludes that

at some level, there's no point in spending a lot of time designing policies which can't be enacted in any conceivable democratic polity.  Especially if advocating those policies make it hard to advocate things that might work--either because the advocacy takes time away from thinking about feasible solutions, or because you alienate the people you are trying to influence.

It makes no sense, she suggests, to think about or advocate for sensible policies when you could be thinking about and advocating for politically feasible policies whether or not they work. Because, one assumes, it's better to something ineffective or wrong then to spend time trying to convince people to do some effective or correct.

Or put another way:

Bart: You make me sick, Homer. You're the one who told me I could do
anything if I just put my mind to it!
Homer: Well, now that you're a little bit older, I can tell you that's
a crock! No matter how good you are at something, there's always
about a million people better than you.

Bart:  Gotcha.  Can't win, don't try.