Someday, a thirty-something grad student pursuing joint Ph.D.s in literature and political theory will analyze the trajectory of Ross Douthat’s writing measured by the length of his employment with the New York Times.  In a post that he just put up, Douthat spends a number of paragraphs musing about reasons that American progressives seem unwilling to admit when they’re in the process of achieving their goals.

Some of his points are well taken, generally.  When your political philosophy is built upon the belief that it’s possible to perfect the universe, every victory is but a failure to have gone farther.  For all that his post is an interesting diversion for a few minutes of midday procrastination, though, I think he misses an important consideration.  As a practical matter, it may be the most important consideration.

Namely, progressives’ continued progress relies on a perpetual series of deceptions.  The public can’t know about the end goal, because it would put an end to the experiment.  The Obama Administration has been a six-year illustration of the point.  The statement of one center-right acquaintance back during the 2008 election comes to mind.  He “really believed” that Obama would govern as a centrist.

Consider same-sex marriage.  Ten years ago, advocates declared it absurd to think that a single state’s redefinition of the institution would be translated across the country by judiciary, which process is currently working its way through the courts.  And Obama’s declared support for traditional marriage was always an obvious ruse until opportunity arose to “evolve” all of a sudden.

Consider ObamaCare.  Even beyond “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” imagine if progressives had admitted that they fully expected the law to require Christian business owners to pay for abortifacients for their employees.  Now, a narrow Supreme Court ruling that the law cannot do that is declared to be a 100-year setback for women’s rights.

This short post could be a book if I were to catalog examples.  I’d challenge objectors to provide a contrary example.

Libertarian-minded conservatives tend to want the process for change to be cultural and slow; we’ll continue to oppose radical reimagining of our society, but we want the battle to happen with each individual’s making up his or her mind.  Progressives tend much more toward “by any means necessary,” and with no change ever happening quickly enough.

That approach all but necessitates a methodology of promising “that’ll never happen,” followed shortly by “it’s better that it did happen.”