“You establishment lackeys would rather lose with dignity than do what it takes to win!” the familiar criticism goes. Politics ain’t beanbag, etc. Mitt Romney didn’t win, did he? Somewhere in Henderson, Nev., Harry Reid is snickering.

Karl Marx and Joseph Stalin, too. “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways,” Marx said, highlighting the inevitable rift between the intellectuals and the bomb-throwers. “The point, however, is to change it.” The Western world was at one point quite full of apologists for the purges and brutalities of Joseph Stalin, with our Communists and fellow-travelers — just “liberals in a hurry,” they said they were — justifying what ended up being 100 million deaths as the brush-clearing necessary before laying the foundations of utopia. The inevitable cliché, “You’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelet,” was answered with characteristic economy by George Orwell: “Where’s the omelet?”

Republicans ought to be asking themselves the same question.