The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.

The line crystallizes a familiar Adornian dilemma: participation in mass-democratic politics often demands tactics—simplification, image-management, strategic compromise, negative campaigning—that mirror the very forms of domination and manipulation critical theory condemns. To “win” a campaign can require adopting the logic of the system (instrumental reason, marketing, conformity), thereby undermining the moral or emancipatory claims that would make victory worth having. The quote thus reads as an ethical paradox about means and ends: if the path to power requires becoming what one opposes, success becomes self-discrediting. It also implies a critique of political culture in which electoral competition rewards untruth, opportunism, and performative authenticity over substantive justice.