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Does anyone understand the term "Pragmatism"?

Quite well, actually. In the long tern, it results in the abandoning of principle for the sake of political expediency. That is what helped to morph "Classical Liberalism" into today's modern liberalism. It started out as an effort in pragmatism and has resulted in the destruction of a movement that once stood proudly for liberty and self government. The Democratic Party was once wedded to a limited federal government agenda until the Great Depression made it more "practical" to move leftwards. FDR's supporters assured his critics that this was temporary and was needed to prevent the nation from embracing out right communism. It was all done in the name of "pragmatism". The trend was furthered accelerated with LBJ and the Great Society.

Today, the GOP is following the same trend and critics are told that we must do so in the name of "pragmatism". Just as FDR's New Deal supposedly saved us from embracing out right communism, today's GOP leadership is saving us from the radical left. The problem is that such "pragmatism" provides no anchor to the slow drift toward socialism. As the Dems move farther to the left, the GOP moves leftward as well. This is called moving the political center leftward and is a strategy openly advocated by the Progressives here in Vermont. When the Dems or Progressives win, we move quickly to the left, when the GOP wins, we move a little slower to the left.

There is no way to reverse this trend unless someone puts a stake in the ground in the name of principle. The left was willing to lose elections in the early days as long as they succeeded in moving the political debate leftward. They understood that real victory was more a matter of which direction the political debate was moved in. Another example of this notion being put into practice is Eugene Debs. He ran 5 times for President as the American Socialist Party candidate. Though he never won a race, or even came very close, he considered himself and his party victorious. Just about every platform he ran on was picked up by the Democratic Party to keep from losing the urban population.