It's a desperately difficult thing to gauge, I think. I try to see social progress as 'two steps forward, one step back' - you drag things forward, there is a reaction, but they will never be able to undo everything, because enough of the centre and waverers have bought into the newly enshrined rights and opportunities (and realised that they or people close to them also benefit from them).

But sometimes, I just wonder whether taking one and a half steps forward and no steps back might be a possibility at some stages, for a slight net gain in the long run. Whether it's that extra half-step that triggers a reaction, and can be plausibly exaggerated enough to create a groundswell of opposition.

The Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.