Quotes About Politics

So the question remains: why should we regard majority rule as morally special? Why should a part of the people – even the larger part – decide for the whole?

American democracy is at risk. The risk comes not from some external threat but from disturbing internal trends: an erosion of the activities and capacities of citizenship. Americans have turned away from politics and the public sphere in large numbers, leaving our civic life impoverished. Citizens participate in public affairs less frequently, with less knowledge and enthusiasm, in fewer venues, and less equally than is healthy for a vibrant democratic polity.

The federal system no longer represents the will of the American people.

At a Trump rally after the election, a reporter spotted a pair of Republicans wearing shirts that read, I'D RATHER BE A RUSSIAN THAN A DEMOCRAT. Centuries before, George Washington, riding out of thriving Philadelphia toward the lush hills of Mount Vernon, recognized what the failure of American democracy would look like. It looks like them.

The fruit of hyper-partisanship and a toxic informational environment is paralysis—paralysis at a moment of peril.

The norm of bipartisan agreement has been shattered forever and, once shattered, it cannot be put back together.

He was a democrat in practice as well as theory, was opposed to the slave trade, tried to keep it out of the Territories beyond the Ohio river and was in favor of freeing the slaves in Virginia.

Wobblies favored a Socialist form of government while anarchists believed in no government—their

Bonhoeffer did not write a political theology nor was he much given to discussing politics in his letters, sermons, and lectures. He has at times been criticized by scholars as apolitical—which is an odd claim to make of one of the few ministers murdered in the concentration camps on charges of political conspiracy.

piety went public in postwar politics: "under God" was written into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, and "In God We Trust" became the nation's official motto in 1956.

Don't the Conservatives know that Jesus was soft on crime?

The important thing today is not what we say of Lincoln but what Lincoln would say of us if he were here in this hour and could note the drift and tendency in American life and American politics.

You tell me your favorite novelists and I'll tell you whom you vote for, or whether you vote at all.

Patronage, not democracy, was the most important force in the islands.

To be convicted of a crime in the Philippines is almost to be convicted of lacking influence.

Self-interest in Filipino politics was openly celebrated.

In a rational society we would want our presidents to be teachers. In our actual society we insist that they be cheerleaders.

In a rational society we would want our presidents to be teachers. In our actual society we insist they be cheerleaders.

When economic tribalism dominates the political system, civilization reverts to a system of fiefdoms.

The President gave a speech recommended for ages 2 to 6.

Hell, most folks aren't even surprised by what you people do nowadays. Guy gets a bee-jay right in the Oval Office and what do we do? Elect his wife to the U.S. Senate, that's what.

So my degree was in political science, which I think was - the closest I could come to marketing is politics.

Far from being incompatible, politics and Christianity are, in reality, inseparable. What don't mix are Christianity and social apathy. (p. 117)

There was no American policy on Afghan politics at the time, only the de facto promotion of Pakistani goals as carried out by Pakistani intelligence. The CIA forecasted repeatedly during this period that postwar Afghanistan was going to be an awful mess; nobody could prevent that. Let the Pakistanis sort out the regional politics. This was their neighborhood.