In politics, you have to balance these things: what is good for
In politics, you have to balance these things: what is good for the country, what is available, and what is possible.
The words of Subramanian Swamy, “In politics, you have to balance these things: what is good for the country, what is available, and what is possible,” resound as a lesson in the art of governance. He reminds us that politics is not the realm of dreams alone, nor of brute power alone, but of balance. To serve the people is to walk a narrow bridge, weighing vision against reality, and ideal against the limits of circumstance. The wise leader does not abandon what is good, but neither does he blind himself to what can truly be achieved.
The ancients knew this truth well. Aristotle called politics the “art of the possible,” teaching that statesmen must temper lofty ideals with practical wisdom. To desire only what is best without considering what is at hand is folly, like a farmer who dreams of harvest without seed. To cling only to what is available without reaching higher is cowardice, like a sailor who never leaves the shore. The leader’s burden is to unite the good, the available, and the possible, so that vision may become reality.
History gives us luminous examples. Consider Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. He knew that freeing the enslaved was the moral good, but he also knew that the Union was fragile, and that timing and circumstance would decide the nation’s survival. The Emancipation Proclamation was not declared at the war’s beginning, but at the moment when it became both righteous and possible, uniting principle with strategy. Lincoln embodied Swamy’s truth: to govern is to choose not only what ought to be done, but when and how it may be done.
So too in India’s own struggle for freedom, Mahatma Gandhi balanced these same forces. Nonviolent resistance was always good in principle, but he gauged carefully what the people could endure and what the empire might yield. He did not demand the impossible all at once, but step by step moved the nation closer to liberation. His genius lay not only in moral vision, but in his ability to read the tides of history and act when the moment was ripe.
Let the generations remember: the statesman must be both dreamer and realist, visionary and tactician. To neglect the good is to betray the soul of a nation. To ignore the available is to waste resources. To forget the possible is to doom all efforts to failure. The art of governance is not to choose among these, but to weave them together into harmony. And the leader who can balance them well becomes not just a ruler of the moment, but a steward of destiny.
DTDuyen Thanh
I’m curious about expanding the frontier of what’s “available” and “possible,” not just choosing within it. Capacity investments—digital services, procurement reform, better data, talent pipelines—can convert ambitious ideas into routine delivery. Likewise, narrative work can shift the Overton window so tomorrow’s votes exist. What’s your playbook for changing the constraint set itself? Think: pre-baking bipartisan frameworks, interoperable funding streams, or civic tech partnerships that cut delivery time. If you had one institutional upgrade to unlock ten future policies, what would it be?
CNCamm Nnhii
Compromise is easier to swallow when the rationale is transparent. Would you commit to a short, public memo before major votes: the intended benefit, constraints you faced, rejected options with reasons, and measurable milestones to revisit? Add a post-implementation scorecard six or twelve months later showing what moved and what didn’t. If the delta is large, promise a corrective. This kind of reason-giving could rebuild trust, turning “horse-trading” into understandable sequencing rather than backroom mystery and slogan warfare.
HNHuong Nguyen
Here’s my moral worry: feasibility often favors the well-organized, not the most deserving. When the just outcome lacks a lobby, do we quietly drop it in the name of realism? Where are your red lines—areas where you’ll accept defeat rather than compromise core rights or equal treatment? Please outline a hierarchy: non-negotiables, stretch aims, and transactional chips you’ll trade. I’m asking for an explicit conscience clause, so pragmatism doesn’t slowly smuggle cynicism into every judgment about who counts.
DDPham Duy Dat
Practically, this reads like a product roadmap problem. You need an MVP policy that actually ships while you fundraise for the bigger build. What’s your method for turning a sweeping goal into a coalition-sized slice—e.g., phased rollouts, opt-in pilots, or state–local compacts? I’d love a template: articulate core benefit, specify who pays short-term, lock a sunset or review clause, and predeclare expansion criteria. Also, how do you protect the pilot from being kneecapped by opponents who fear the proof-of-concept succeeding?
PNDao thi phuong nga
I’d like clarity on the difference between what’s “available” and what’s “possible.” Available sounds like budget, staff, legal authority; possible sounds like vote counts and political will. A policy might be technically ready but dead on arrival in a legislature. How do you triage? My proposal: a four-box grid—high/low public value vs. high/low feasibility—then sequence pilots, bargaining, or shelving accordingly. What time horizon do you use, and when do you deliberately burn political capital on a high-value, low-feasibility bet?