Steve Randy Waldman takes Krugman and the US left-of-center more generally to task for their implicit assumption that our national ideological stage is somehow not subject to being shaped over time. Casino games and sport have fixed rules. Politics does not. Somehow, many positions that even Nixon was supportive of in 1970 would now be laughed out of congress as socialist. Trying to get things done within the apparent current constraints is not necessarily as pragmatic as trying to change the rules over time.