People
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
Behind the line May contain spoilers.
Our reading
An editorial interpretation.
The familiar description of politics as working with what is possible is replaced by a much bleaker choice. Disaster sits on one side and something merely unpleasant on the other. The contrast makes political judgment sound less like achieving an ideal than selecting the less damaging option.
Context reviewed