Barack Obama

If we do X, is this going to make things better?

Because, and I'd tell them, better is good.

We're not going to get to perfect.

If you're telling me that the Affordable Care Act is gonna insure 50 million people, do I think that's better than if we had a,

if we were starting from scratch and I can get a single payer plan instituted and, and, and get that through Congress and suddenly we had universal healthcare and we had taken the profit motive out of, do I think that would probably be a smarter way to, absolutely.

Right.

But since I can't do that.

Yeah.

I don't have the votes for that.

How about this?

We can make it better.

Right.

And, and you know, this, um,

this sense that things aren't worth it unless we get everything we want, I think is

is either a recipe for disappointment in a democracy, but also maybe in life, or it leads to this weird cynicism where you just withdraw entirely.

And that's part of what happened to too many of our folks.

I think we decided, all right, if I'm not going to get everything, then that justifies doing nothing.

It's interesting.

I had a conversation with Malia, my daughter.

It was probably three, four years ago.