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American Politics Quotes

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American Politics Quotes

“The Hispanic population grew by 4.7 percent last year, while blacks expanded by 1.5 percent and whites by a paltry 0.3 percent. Hispanics cast 6 percent of the vote in 1990 and 12 percent in 2000. If their numbers expand at the current pace, they will be up to 18 percent in 2010 and 24 percent in 2020. With one-third of Hispanics voting Republican, they are the jump ball in American politics. As this vote goes, so goes the future.”

“Barack Obama, who might be mercifully closing the Clinton parenthesis in presidential history, is refreshingly cerebral amid this recrudescence of the paranoid style in American politics. He is the un-Edwards and un-Huckabee - an adult aiming to reform the real world rather than an adolescent fantasizing mock-heroic 'fights' against fictitious villains in a left-wing cartoon version of this country.”

“My assessment is that we have a crisis in national political leadership. When will America recognize the danger we face? When will the corrosive partisanship of American politics end and allow for a bipartisan solution to arguably the most dangerous threat our nation has faced in over 60 years?”

“Constraint theory argues a number of things. First, that the impossible has to be identified. Second, that the actor is then constrained by circumstances to act a certain way. For example, should we invade ISIS? Can we invade ISIS? What would it take to invade ISIS? Once you ask that question you discover the price of that option and then you take a look at American politics and see that the country is probably not prepared to invest the 2 to 3 million people that it would take to defeat ISIS and the insurgency afterwards. All right, so that's not going to happen.”

“Sarah Palin is a great example of someone that just stirs the pot for the sake of the attention. No vision, no critical thinking, no backup to her statements. Just to incite little riots everywhere and capitalize upon it financially. To me, she is a microcosm of the ultimate cynicism in American politics.”

“For all the talk about the bitterness and the partisanship in American politics, is it really that bitter and partisan? Think of American history. Think of Joseph McCarthy. Think of the New Left. Think of [George] McGovern. Think of [Ronald] Reagan. Think of George Wallace. We've had an awful lot of real extremism on both wings.”

“Here's the point - and Jonah Goldberg reminds us of this. He wrote a blog post that was titled "The MacGuffinization of American Politics." Do you know what a MacGuffin is? "'In a movie or book, 'The MacGuffin' is the thing the hero wants,' Ace writes." So in the Maltese Falcon, for example, the hero wants the Maltese Falcon, but there's always somebody trying to stop the hero from getting what he wants.”

“I see a huge, huge divide between the people who are facing the most barriers and violence and the kinds of stories being told in mainstream American politics. The issues that I think most about - how many people's lives are being affected by prisons and policing, how many people's lives are being affected by immigration enforcement and deportation - those stories aren't being touched, let alone told, in mainstream politics.”

“I'm still trying to figure out exactly what President Trump represents in American politics. But, if nothing else, he represents a way for tens of millions of people who were desperate for change to just turn the table over and say, we want to start over again. But it is a challenge for our democracy. It definitely is. But, again, the remedy has to be devoting enough attention to restoring the way we make collective decisions in this country.”

“Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country - and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.”

“No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.”

“Obama seemed poised to realign American politics after his stunning 2008 victory. But the economy remains worse than even the administration's worst-case scenarios, and the long legislative battles over health care reform, financial services reform and the national debt and deficit have taken their toll. Obama no longer looks invincible.”

“After I left the White House, I kept a foothold in the business of American politics; as a talk-show host, analyst, commentator, speechmaker, and occasional writer. I was no longer a practitioner, but I was still a partisan, a Democrat, a blue-stater through and through.”

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”