They don't care if it works. They only care if you give them power on the promise that it will. When it doesn't, blame 'the other side.' rinse, and repeat. Socialists know they can't make it in the real world without it; for them, power is survival, their struggle is for life itself.
This is why they struggle; it's not "social justice" or equality; it's THEM being richly compensated for dispensing their ideas of social justice and equality, only so long as it leads to more power, whether anybody likes it or not doesn't matter. To a Democrat, first, last and always, power is a matter of life and death. If that means yours in the process, so be it.
[SNIP]
They do it not because they are themselves corrupted through material rewards. The prospect of fame is not even what drives them. Think only of Harold Ickes, personally betrayed and brutally cast aside by Clinton, who nonetheless refused to turn on him, even after the betrayal. Instead, Ickes kept his own counsel and protected Clinton, biding his time and waiting for Hillary. Then joined her staff to manage her Senate campaign.
[SNIP]
Conservatives who think progressives are misinformed idealists will forever be blind-sided by the malice of the leftby the cynicism of those who pride themselves on principle, by the viciousness of those who champion sensitivity, by the intolerance of those who call themselves liberal, and by the ruthless disregard for the well-being of the downtrodden by those who preen themselves as social saints.
Conservatives are caught by surprise because they see progressives as merely misguided, when in fact they are fundamentally misdirected. They are the messianists of a religious faith. But it is a false faith and a self-serving religion. Since the redeemed future that justifies their existence and rationalizes their hypocrisy can never be realized, what really motivates progressives is a modern idolatry: their limitless passion for the continuance of Them.
Hillary Clinton and "The Third Way" How America's First Lady of the Left Has Bamboozled Liberals and Conservatives Alike - David Horowitz, June 2000