United States | News & Politics

I think when someone who isn't careerist or corrupt slips through the cracks and gets elected to congress, the more they hold to their principles the harder it is to survive. Holding firm means making enemies of almost everyone you work with and losing office. Trying to play nice while holding your principles means fading into irrelevance until you pick a path. Legitimately trying to accomplish things means actually breathing through that ecosystem day-in-day-out until you've absorbed the rot without even knowing it.

I don't know Massie's reprehensible opinions, I'm sure they're there because he wouldn't be a republican otherwise, but I do get the sense he actually believes things so isn't a lost cause. I think Sanders went the irrelevance route for ages before starting to compromise, but in the past decade has lost more and more perspective through the horrors of the campaign trail. I've had the sense AOC has always been a careerist, but if she wasn't to begin with she is now regardless. All of this is personal vibes-based analysis which shouldn't be taken seriously, but commenting to validate that I get the same impression.