Maybe absolutely nothing?

Last week, Matthew Yglesias wrote a ridiculous piece arguing that liberals (liberals is his term) should embrace the oil and gas industries to win votes. In response, Democratic Representative Sean Casten (IL-06), on Bluesky, performed a rapid scheduled disassembly on Yglesias’ piece.

But this post is not about the merits of that reply (though they are very good). At one point in the thread, Casten wrote, “And before team Yglesias responds by saying “yeah, but it’s bad politics to run on climate and energy”… I’d point out that I’ve won 4 elections in a very purple district running on climate and energy. Pro-tip: leadership is possible! You don’t have to be stupid to win!”

At that point chartfucker Lakshya Jain came to Yglesias’ defense with this snotty tweet:

This is essentially a category error by Jain, which isn’t surprising given that he is partly responsible for wasting hundred of millions of dollars on bad strategy for the 2024 election. What is so hilariously stupid about Jain’s statement is, if someone takes controversial stands and still manages to win (this is not moneyball, so WAR doesn’t matter; to quote the Raiders’ former owner, Al Davis, just win baby), that makes him a good politician. He is maximizing the utility of his office, not his electoral margin of victory.

Suppose Democrats passed some really good legislation, and is usually the case, lots of candidates underperformed in the next election, some even lost. Would anyone view that as a failure? Nope.