Yep. THere is indeed a tension. Blindly following idealogies will fail us. Pragmastism, for the current moment, might solve some immediate problems, but it gives no sense of direction for the future--either for the politcians or the voters.

We need to borrow thinking from both the left and the right--and apply them to the appropriate situations. Here is my "ideology":

https://medium.com/tiered-democratic-governance/daveology-b71cf3b3bed4

Funny thing is that most western democracies are already kind of doing this. The differences between the competitive mainstream parties are small when compared to the extremes of the ideologies.

And yet we are asked to vote based on their espoused ideologies.

Methinks it's all about the power that Dr. Giles is talking about.