Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird.

Things are bad when I'm quoting Nietzsche. Truly, I'm not a fan. But it's an apt quote for something that's bemused me this week.

Our local NY Progressives plan to endorse a candidate for Congress in the NY 23rd. In fact, two of the chapters have already endorsed, so only one is left, and that one is requesting statements from the candidates despite warning them that 2/3 of the vote may go against them unless someone in this chapter can re-convince the other chapters of their righteousness.

These are (some of) the same people who railed against the Democratic Party—rightly, I thought—in the 2016 primaries for having a thumb too heavily on the scales. There was a lot of conversation about the unfairness of the primary system and of the endorsement system and of straw polling, and I, who have always disliked straw polling and consider endorsements simply a power play on the part of parties, agreed with a lot of what was said. Endorsements are about power. Some people think that's a good thing and the job and purpose of parties, and they are probably right, too. But complainers, and I've been one in the past, are also correct that all of this in-house cogitation is a giant step away from democracy, especially the part of democracy that pretends to support "one person, one vote."

It turns out that the NY Progs realized quite soon in their growth that a way to be relevant in the process was to endorse the candidate they found most appealing. Whether that was to narrow the field or to pump up their own status or to excite their membership, I don't know—it may have been all three. But the message I hear is, "When it's our thumb, it's okay."

How rapidly we become the thing we hate when we gain a modicum of power! You can see it sometimes with labor unions, whose organization over time often reflects corporate structure, and you can see it in small agencies that purport to hate lobbyists until suddenly they grow big enough to lobby for themselves. 

Why does it seem impossible to create something new that, once it achieves influence, actually approaches the problems it fights in a new way? Why does battling monsters have to lead to monstrous behavior? (Okay, endorsing candidates may not qualify as monstrous, but you know what I mean.)

After #MeToo became a thing, Paul wanted me to write a short story in which women gained governmental and corporate power and over time became just as bad as men ever were. I'm not doing it, first because it's not a new idea, but mostly because it makes me so damn sad.