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politics, politicians

Monday 4th of May 2026

2020 Presidential election The problem … is not Mr Biden's failure to kindle passion in people. It is our psychic need for such a person in the first place. His election might reacquaint the US with politics as it should be and has been: a machine for the arbitration of conflicting claims, and not as the basis of one's whole identity. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, September 16, 2020 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Affluence Beyond a certain point, it seems, the civic returns on economic growth are nil or even negative. The left's theory is that distribution counts for more than raw scale of wealth or its rate of growth. Too wide a gap between rich and poor tests the tensile strength of their civic bond. There is a darker explanation to entertain, though: that something about prosperity itself frees voters to toy with politics. Call it recreational extremism. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, July 6, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Anti-intellectualism The triumph of popular democracy brought an anti-intellectual bias to American politics that never entirely disappeared. Self-government didn't require any special learning, just the native wisdom of the people. “Even in its earliest days,” Richard Hofstadter wrote, “the egalitarian impulse in America was linked with a distrust for what in its germinal form may be called political specialization and in its later forms expertise.” Hostility to aristocracy widened into a general suspicion of educated sophisticates. The more learned citizens were actually less fit to lead; the best politicians came from the ordinary people and stayed true to them. George Packer, The Atlantic, July/August 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Biden administraation It took about 50 days for US president  Joe Biden to fulfil his 100-day vow of 100m vaccinations. The trick is as simple as it is old: under-promise and over-deliver.  Yet after four years of Donald Trump doing the opposite, it feels strangely novel. The same applies to Biden’s $1.9tn recovery package. In one bill, he has provided the financial relief that Trump kept telling middle-class Americans they already had. Might America dare to hope that its days of politics as a branch of the entertainment industry are over? Edward Luce, Financial Times, March 18, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
The Big Lie The “Big Lie,” a term that originates with Hitler, became central to American political discourse after I applied it to Trump's claim to have won an election he had lost. The concept of the “Big Lie,” which I reintroduced into discussion in 2019 and 2020, helped millions of people see how mendacity of a certian scale affects politics over time, making democracy ever more difficult. Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands © 2022 Kwiple.com
The Big Lie Hitler says if you tell a lie that's of a certain scale that's big enough, people won't believe that you could deceive them on that scale. And since they believe it and take it in at first, they don't want to disbelieve it later on. It becomes part of their life; it becomes what we now call an alternative reality. It begins to shape politics. It begins to instantiate itself not only in memory, but in policy. You act as if it's true and you move on to do things as though it were true. So, in our example, if we pretend that Trump won the election in 2020, then we have an argument for suppressing votes because we can say, well there was fraud, therefore we should suppress votes. Timothy Snyder, April 29, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Books Until recently, to understand America's political system, citizens could read classics like Democracy in America, The American Political Tradition, and Profiles in Courage. Then Donald J. Trump was elected president. Now Americans are reading On Tyranny, How Democarcies Die, and the Mueller report. Daniel W. Drezner, The Toddler in Chief © 2020 Kwiple.com
Bureaucracy In tacitly partnering with bureaucracies, even as they complain about the partnership, politicians and citizens implicitly rely on an efficiency in the economist's sense:  the efficiency of delegation. That efficiency is ubiquitous. Richard M. Valelly, American Politics © 2018 Kwiple.com
Books Until recently, to understand America's political system, citizens could read classics like Democracy in America, The American Political Tradition, and Profiles in Courage. Then Donald J. Trump was elected president. Now Americans are reading On Tyranny, How Democarcies Die, and the Mueller report. Daniel W. Drezner, The Toddler in Chief © 2020 Kwiple.com
Bullshitters say In the United States of America we do not prosecute people based on politics and we don't cut them a break based on politics either. William Barr, Trump's fixer, who interfered in Michael Flynn's case, Roger Stone's case, Rudy Guiliani's case, the Mueller investigation, etc. © 2020 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In 1960, when a survey asked American adults whether it would “disturb” them if their child married a member of the other political party, no more than 5 percent of either party answered “yes.” But in 2010, 33 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans answered “yes.” In fact, partyism, as some call it, now beats race as the source of divisive prejudice.  Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land  © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Minimum number of states in which laws to criminalize political protest have been introduced this year: 9 Harper's Index, April 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Christianity What has happened to American Christianity is there is this afterglow of what a candidate is supposed to represent. It is no longer moral character. It is policy positions on things that bother evangelicals. Wayne Flynt, reflecting on the overwhelming support among evangelicals for Trump in 2016  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Citizenship [For] the ancient Greeks political participation formed an intrinsic part of citizenship. To enjoy the promise of civic equality that the status of citizenship holds out, all citizens had to play their part in the political process. Otherwise, instead of a situation of ruling and being ruled in turn, a citizen would simply be ruled. Indeed, our word 'idiot' comes from the Greek idiotes , a term used to describe someone who concentrates entirely on their private affairs to the neglect of the public realm. Richard Bellamy, Citizenship: A Very Short Introduction © 2019 Kwiple.com
Class The old notion that politicians from different classes essentially want the same things — that the interests of the mechanic “can be more effectually promoted by the merchant” [as Hamilton said] — is deeply mistaken. On the important economic issues of the day, members of Congress routinely vote with class. Nicholas Carnes, White-Collar Government © 2019 Kwiple.com
Congress As politics has become polarized, Congress has increasingly become a check only on presidents of the opposite party. David Frum, “How to Build an Autocracy” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theories Realizing that no single cabal can secretly control the entire world is not just accurate – it is also empowering. It means that you can identify the competing factions in our world, and ally yourself with some groups against others. That's what real politics is all about. Yuval Noah Harari, New York Times, November 20, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Corruption The corrupt politician is he who brings into public service the traditions of a private career. Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Criminal justice While it is true that no former former US president has before been indicted on criminal charges, little else about the indictment of Donald Trump is as “unprecedented” as the headlines have so endlessly declared. If there’s one thing that American politics has established a precedent for, it's pretending that its own corruption is unprecedented. Wikipedia helpfully curates a list of 134 (by my count) federal US politicians who  have been convicted of criminal wrongdoing. Sarah Churchwell, Financial Times, April 3, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy As a rule of thumb, a democracy is in good health  to the extent that its politics do not matter. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, January 19, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy The greatest threat to our democracy  comes not from demagogues like Mr. Trump or even from extremist followers like those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 but rather from the ordinary politicians, many of them inside the Capitol that day who protect and enable him. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, New York Times, September 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Democracy Public apathy and political ignorance are a fundamental fact today, beyond any possible dispute; decisions are made by political leaders, not by popular vote, which at best has only an occasional veto power after the fact. The issue is whether this state of affairs is, under modern conditions, a necessary and desirabe one, or whether new forms of popular participation, in the Athenian spirit though not in the Athenian substance, if I may phrase it that way, need to be invented. M. I. Finley, Democracy Ancient and Modern  [1973] © 2018 Kwiple.com
Duh obvious An overwhelming majority of voters are disgusted by the state of American politics, and many harbor doubts that either major-party nominee can unite the country after a historically ugly presidential campaign, according to the final pre-election New York Times/CBS News Poll. New York Times, November 3, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Economics [T]he best economic order would help to generate a distribution political resources favorable to voting equality, effective participation, enlightened understanding, and final control of the political agenda by all adults subject to the laws. … But we may reasonably demand that our economic order also be just. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Elites That Elon Musk has been able to dominate the world’s space-based satellite systems — and global communications infrastructure — with little pushback from nation-states speaks to extraordinary capture of our political possibilities by microscopically small elites. Danielle Allen, The New Republic, July/August 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Facts Our recent research … examined a slippery way by which people get away from facts that contradict their beliefs. Of course, sometimes people just dispute the validity of specific facts. But we find that sometimes they go one step further and, as in the opening example [in which people transformed debate about safety of immunization into debate about parental rights], reframe an issue in untestable ways. This makes potential important facts and science ultimately irrelevant to the issue. Troy Campbell and Justin Friesen, Why People “Fly from Facts,” Scientific American, March 3, 2016 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Fox News Fox's great insight wasn't necessarily that there was a great desire for a conservative point of view. The genius was seeing that there's an attraction to fear-based, anger-based politics that has to do with class and race. Blair Levin © 2019 Kwiple.com
Freedom But unlike external freedom, internal freedom cannot be guaranteed. Some people are independent-minded by nature; others are born conformists. All that politics can do is to provide more favourable conditions for those who want to choose their own path in life to do so. David Miller, Political Philisophy © 2018 Kwiple.com
Globalization We see repeatedly that when people anywhere are desperate, people everywhere are at risk. In a world where pandemic disease spreads from one continent to another in the span of a few hours, where terrorist attacks are more random and frequent, and where political crises trigger mass migration, it is in our collective interest to fight against the daily reality of poverty, sickness and frustration. Bill and Melinda Gates, Wall Street Journal, September 16-17, 2017 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Government The atmosphere is ripe for a party of big government to sweep elections in post-pandemic America. But then so it has been before. Looking back at the past century or so, two political facts seem to hold across several rich democracies. One is the ideo- logical supremacy of the left. The other is its electoral underperformance. … We are left with one of the oddest quirks in politics. Voters often choose the party that is less keen on government to oversee its expansion. … Voters trust that parties who enlarge the state reluctantly are likely to do it sensibly. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, April 8, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Government Governments deal with “wicked problems” that can't be solved (or even fully understood): social injustice, hostile powers or climate change. The “solutionism” of Silicon Valley rarely works in politics. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, March 10-11, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
History History is past politics, and politics is present history. Edward Augustus Freeman, Methods of Historical Study  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Hypocrisy If we dislike hypocrisy more than we dislike lying, then it is not just a problem for climate politics. It is a problem for democracy. It gives the liars their chance. David Runciman © 2017 Kwiple.com
Hypocrisy There is a lot of hard-to-explain hypocrisy and rush taking place right now,  and my expeience around politics says that when you find hypocrisy in the daylight, look for power in the shadows. Sheldon Whitehouse, at confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett © 2020 Kwiple.com
Hypocrites say My warning, if you will, to corporate America is to stay out of politics. It's not what you're designed for. And don't be intimidated by the Left into taking up causes that put you right in the middle of one of America's greatest political debates. Mitch McConnell, who has spent a career being the best among his Senate colleagues at attracting money from giant corporations and their CEOs, expressing his outrage that some of them stopped contributing to Republicans after the January 6, 2021, insurrection, and joined Democratic-led opposition to Republican-led efforts to pass voting suppresion laws © 2021 Kwiple.com
Identity politics But in identity politics, equality  refers to groups, not individuals, and demands action to redress disparate outcomes among groups — in other words, equity,  which often amounts to new forms of discrimination. George Packer, The Atlantic, July/August 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Identity politics Fifteen years in and around politics have persuaded me of one thing. With exceptions, people's ideological commitments are laughably weak. They infer their beliefs from their tribe, not the other way around. A leader who clearly delineates one group from its rival – through rhetoric, through symbols – can count on credulous adoration. They are providing millions with a sense of belonging that might once have come from religion or ethnicity. Political affiliation becomes what the academic Lilliana Mason calls a “mega-identity”. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, Oct. 24, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Identity politics If there is one thing to be salvaged from Marxist thought – and, really, I must insist on just the one – it is relative indifference to matters of blood. The stress was always on material interest as the motor of history. By rejecting Marx, the US remained free and prosperous, but also defenceless against identity neuroses. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, January 16, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Identity politics The point on which liberals must therefore insist is that identity is not an “either/or” but an “as-well-as-and.” Timothy Garten Ash, Prospect magazine, January/February 2021 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Ignorance I've divided it [the Age of Ignorance] into the Three Stages of Ignorance: Ridicule, Acceptance and Celebration. During the Ridicule stage, ignorance was a magnet for mockery … During the Acceptance stage, ignorance mutated into something more acceptable: a sign that a poltician was authentic, down-to-earth, and a“normal person” … During the Celebration stage … ignorance has become preferable to knowledge, dunces are exalted over experts, and a candidate can win a seat in Congress after blaming wildfires on Jewish space lasers. Andy Borowitz, Profiles in Ignorance  [2022] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Institutions An institution, such as an assembly or administrative body, is a complexs of human actions that must be integrated and coordinated if a decision is to emerge. At best, coordination tends to be imperfect, and, consequently, the objectives of action are rarely achieved in a direct way. Political action, in other words, becomes indirect in character; between the word and the deed stands the distorting medium of institutions. Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision © 2018 Kwiple.com
Interests [W]hen the interest motive is admitted into politics the real danger does not reside in any moral depravity consequent on the pursuit of so-called materialistic ends; man's history has not been a pretty record  when he has fought for “ideal” ends. The real danger comes when politics is reduced to nothing but the pursuit of interests, when no controlling standards of obligation are recognized. Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision © 2018 Kwiple.com
Justice Justice is never in a hurry. Politics usually is. Edward Luce, Financial Times, March 30, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say The lying has to stop. The liars have to be put down. © 2018 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Overturn the Citizens United decision allowing employers to discuss political candidates and issues with employees and to provide them with “information packets” about candidates and issues – activities implying that the employees may lose their job if they don't side with their employers © 2017 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say There are no simple solutions to complex problems © 2016 Kwiple.com
Local politics All politics is local. Thomas (“Tip”) O'Neill, New York Review of Books, March 13, 1989 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Local politics I would rather have a thousand school board members than one president and no school board members. Ralph Reed, 1996 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Making money the old-fashioned way Being an editorial cartoonist © 2017 Kwiple.com
Making money the new-fashioned way Spending half your time fundraising to get re-elected © 2016 Kwiple.com
Markets Another reason for the concentration of corporate power is political capture. Americans invented modern antitrust policy, and love to rail against “statist” old Europe. But a fascinating study by academics Germán Gutiérrez and Thomas Philippon shows that EU markets are, in fact, more competitive. They have lower levels of concentration, lower excess profits, and lower regulatory barriers to entry. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, July 23, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Memory The proper memory for a politician is one that knows what to remember and what to forget. John Morley © 2024 Kwiple.com
Modernity The economy is to the moderns what the polis was to the Greeks: a way of being and appearing in the world, a place to do something “grand and beautiful and noble” that will be recognized now and remembered later. Corey Robin, New York Review of Books, December 8, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Oligarchy Importantly, oligarchy as a governing strategy accounts for both politics and economics. Oligarchs use economic power for political purposes, and, in turn, use politics to expand their economic power. Ganesh Sitaraman, The Great Democracy © 2020 Kwiple.com
Out-of-step legislators A group facing an out-of-step legislator [someone with different goals/priorities] may not be able to do much with the standard tools of lobbying and issue advocacy; interest groups are better at mobilizing their friends than converting their enemies, and elections seem to be more useful for replacing out-of-step legislators than changing their minds. The group's only option may be to try to replace the legislator with another candidate who shares its goals. Nicholas Carnes, White-Collar Government © 2019 Kwiple.com
Participation in politics The shortage of people from the working class in our legislatures and the overrepresentation of white-collar Americans means that tax policies are more regressive, business regulations are more probusiness, and social safety net programs are thinner. Who wins and who loses in this country depends in large part on who governs. Nicholas Carnes, White-collar Government © 2019 Kwiple.com
Participation in politics When [E. E.] Schattschneider analyzed these processes more than a half century ago [1960], he famously concluded that “the flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent.” Since then, the accent has only gotten thicker: unions have declined, business lobbies have become more numerous and more sophisticated, and campaign donations and spending have reached all-time highs. Nicholas Carnes, White-collar Government © 2019 Kwiple.com
Political parties … political parties have no reason to care for those who don't care to vote; this in turn strengthens the impression of the poor (to extent that they can afford any attention at all) that there's nothing in it for them when it comes to politics. Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules © 2021 Kwiple.com
Political parties Politics conducted by political parties simply means politics comducted by interested parties; … Max Weber, “The Politician's Work” in Charisma and Disenchantment, translated by Damion Searls © 2020 Kwiple.com
Politicians The humorless politicians are the most dangerous ones, I think. Armando Iannucci © 2018 Kwiple.com
Politicians In fact, there are ultimately only two kinds of deadly sin in the political realm, lack of objectivity and lack of responsibility. Vanity — the need to put oneself at center stage as much as possible — is what most tempts the politician into either or both of these sins, all the more so as the demagogue has to try to “be effective,” “make an impression,” and thus is always at risk of turning into a mere actor and minimizing his own responsibility for the consequenes of his own actions. Max Weber, “The Politician's Work” in Charisma and Disenchantment, translated by Damion Searls © 2020 Kwiple.com
Politicians A politician is a man who understands government,  and it takes a politican to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years. Harry S. Truman © 2023 Kwiple.com
Politicians A politician is a person who approaches every subject with an open mouth. Adlai Stevenson © 2023 Kwiple.com
Politicians The single most important psychological quality a poltiician needs is the ability to keep people and things at a certain distance. The lack of such detachment is, by itself, a kiss of death for any politician; encouraging our young intellectuals to avoid this “distance” condemns them to be politically useless. Max Weber, “The Politician's Work” in Charisma and Disenchantment, translated by Damion Searls [1919 lecture] © 2020 Kwiple.com
Politics Americans more and more begin by choosing their politics and then choose facts to support their politics. David Frum © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics America's political inclination is to distribute power rather than wealth. Edward Luce, Financial Times, March 7, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Politics Busy with work, child rearing, and managing their households, Americans have little spare time or energy for following what government and politicians do. There are exceptions, especially those who are passionately concerned about global warming or Social Security or any other burning issue. The term for them is “issue publics.” But most people are quite under- standably politically inattentive most of the time. Richard M. Valelly, American Politics © 2018 Kwiple.com
Politics By claiming that the adversarial model of politics and the left/right opposition had become obsolete, and by celebating the ‘consensus at the center‘ between centre-right and centre-left, the so-called ‘radical center’ promoted a technocratic form of politics according to which politics was not a partisan confrontation but the neutral management of public affairs. Chantal Mouffe, For a Left Populism © 2018 Kwiple.com
Politics The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in a 2003 memorandum  © 2016 Kwiple.com
Politics [T]he discontinuities evident in scientific fields make it quite unlikely that a modern scientist would repair to mediaeval science, for example, either for support or inspiration. This, of course, has no bearing on the alleged superiority of scientific over philosophical inquiry. It is mentioned merely to point out that the tradition of political thought is not so much a tradition of discovery as one of meanings extended over time. Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics [T]he essence of a “political” order is the existence of a settled institutional arrangement designed to deal in a variety of ways with the vitalities issuing from an associational life: to offset them where necessary, to ease them where possible, and, creatively, to redirect and transmute them when the opporunity allows. This is not to say that a society cannot achieve order by imposition, but only that such a society is not “political.” Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics [E]xpediency is largely the result of the old problem of trying to establish a uniform rule amidst a context of differences. It is this that frequently leads to concessions and modifications in a policy. The reason is not simply that it is a good thing to formulate policies that will reflect a sensitivity to variations  and differences throughout the society, but rather that a political society is simultaneously trying to act and to remain a community. Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics Experience shows that the cardinal point to which the rich man directs his efforts, consciously or unconsciously, is preserving his economic “security,” and that unconditional, ruthless political idealism is found, if not exclusively then mostly, among the classes who own nothing and who are thus entirely outside the group with an interest in preserving the existing economic system in a given society. That is especially true in exceptional — that is revolutionary — periods. Max Weber, “The Politician's Work” in Charisma and Disenchantment, translated by Damion Searls © 2020 Kwiple.com
Politics Falling victim to deception is no excuse. Leszak Kolakowski, Is God Happy? Selected Essays  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics From politics, it was an easy step to silence. Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Politics A genuinely political society, in which discusssion and debate are an essential technique, is a society full of risks. It is inevitable that, from time to time, the debate will move from tactics to fundamentals, that there will be a challenge not merely to the immediate policies of those who hold governmental power but to the underlying principles, that there will be a radical challenge. That is not only inevitable, it is desirable. It is also inevitable that those interest- groups who prefer the status quo will resist the challenge, among other means by appealing to traditional, deeply rooted beliefs, myths, values, by playing on (and summoning up) fears. M. I. Finley, Democracy Ancient and Modern  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Politics Guilt is a weak political emotion. Moira Weigel, New York Times, April 21, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Politics I have aired Ganesh's First Law of Politics before, but allow me a recapitulation. People do not work out their beliefs and then join the corresponding tribe.  They join a tribe and infer their beliefs from it.  The sense of belonging, the group membership, is what hooks people, not the thrill of being right or pursuing a thought on its own terms. Politics has become a team sport, goes the line on this. But even that is too kind. Sports fans are sardonic and irreverent about their own team. It isn’t so central to their identity as to require consistent adherence.   Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, December 2, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Politics If conciliation is a continuing task for those who govern—and the nature of “politics” would seem to dictate that it is—then order is not a set pattern, but something akin to a precarious equilibrium, a condition that demands a willingness to accept partial solutions. Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics If “the personal is political” was the slogan of the 1960s, docudramas seem to assume that the political is unfailingly personal. Eric Foner, “The Televised Past” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics If they throw a stone at you, you drop a boulder on them.  Mitch McConnell, on campaigning © 2020 Kwiple.com
Politics … if you don't say something provocative, you don't get covered at all. Roger Stone,  the GOP's “king of dirty tricks” © 2016 Kwiple.com
Politics In a rough sense,  the essence of all competitive politics is bribery of the electorate by politicians. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Politics [I]n confronting the world of nature, man might be at once resigned and curious, for this was an order he could neither create nor change. But in the world of politics, a strongly anthropomorphic attitude prevailed: man could be the architect of order. The political world, in short, was amenable to human art. Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics In politics, it is not what you say but what people hear. Edward Luce © 2015 Kwiple.com
Politics [I]n politics, it takes more than a voice to be heard. Samuel Earle, New York Review of Books, October 27, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Politics In politics, the urgent will usually overwhelm the important. David Frum, Trumpocalypse  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Politics Instead of being viewed as a means of bringing citizens together in pursuit of those public interests from which they collectively benefit, politics has come to be seen as but an inefficient mechanism for individuals to pursue their private interests. Richard Bellamy, Citizenship: A Very Short Introduction © 2019 Kwiple.com
Politics It is not normal to be enthusiastic about a politician. Choosing between flawed options is the natural state of democracy. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, November 13, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Politics It's perfectly possible to conduct yourself with ethics, integrity, and no hint of scandal, even in politics, even in D.C., even in Ukraine. Politics don't corrupt people, people corrupt politics. Judge Amy Berman Jackson, during sentencing of Rick Gates © 2019 Kwiple.com
Politics It's tough campaigning, kissing hands and shaking babies. Pat Paulsen © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics Life is political, not because the world cares about how you feel, but because the world reacts to what you do.  Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics Listen to the silence — not just the noise.  Gillian Tett, Financial Times, October 10, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Politics Looked at in one way, political activities are a response to fun-  damental changes taking place in society. From another point of view, these activities provoke conflict because they represent intersecting lines of action whereby individuals and groups seek to stabilize a situation in a way congenial to their aspirations and needs. Thus politics is both a source of conflict and a mode of activity that seeks to resolve conflicts and promote readjustment. Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics No one is innocent after the experience of politics. But not everyone is guilty. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, The Politics of a Guaranteed Income © 2016 Kwiple.com
Politics One man's dirty trick is another man's civic participation. Roger Stone,  the GOP's “king of dirty tricks” © 2016 Kwiple.com
Politics One test of a civilised country is whether a citizen can go days at a time without thinking about politics. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, February 14, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Politics Personal ambition is a necessary element for any political candidate. You got to get out of bed in the morning and be able to really believe in your heart that you have something to offer to folks that’s better and different. I have no argument with people who are involved in politics being ambitious. You need to have it, but it can’t be  what governs your decision-making. Ambition can’t be what makes you decide how to do things as a public figure. Chris Christie, Windham, NH, January 10, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Politics The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice and liberty. John Maynard Keynes © 2019 Kwiple.com
Politics Political will is a renewable resource. Al Gore © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics Politics, as a practice,  whatever its professions, had always been the systematic organization of hatreds. Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Politics Politics as a spectator sport has rarely been more popular. Its mixture of entertainment value with real consequences produces massive audience engagement. Yet at the same time, we're living in an era in which politicians, parliaments and whole political systems are being vilifed in ways they haven't been in decades. … The result is that the most prominent actors on the political stage today are those who cast themselves as non-politican politicians. The era we're living through isn't charact- erized simply by post-truth and populism. It's also, increasingly, an era of anti-politics. Or, at least, the rhetoric of anti-politics. Philip Seargeant, The Art of Political Storytelling © 2022 Kwiple.com
Politics Politics in core Europe and the United States now reflects the pathologies of politics in the lands in between [i.e., Central and Eastern Europe]. Increasingly, all countries in Europe and North America occupy a zone of insecurty between a resurgent Russia and an embattled West. All developed Western countries face a “civilization choice” between a liberal international order fraying at the edges and a brave new world of xenophobic nationalism and great power order, between free markets and rule of law or crony capitalism and oligarchic rule. Mitchell A. Orenstein, The Lands In Between © 2022 Kwiple.com
Politics Politics is about spending capital to achieve messy results. Being a celebrity is about protecting your brand. Edward Luce, Financial Times, January 11, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Politics Poltics is gut; commercials are gut. Frank Luntz, Republican pollster and creator of “climate change” instead of “global warming,” “death tax” instead of “inheritance tax,” “healthy forests” instead of “clearcutting,” “government takeover” instead of “healthcare reform” © 2015 Kwiple.com
Politics Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, you coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close. Ronald Reagan © 2023 Kwiple.com
Politics Politics is more difficult than physics. Albert Einstein © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics Politics is show business for ugly people. Roger Stone,  the GOP's “king of dirty tricks” © 2016 Kwiple.com
Politics Politics throws up two sorts of leader. There are those forever reaching for an umbrella and others, far fewer in number, who set out to change the weather. Western democracies have lately boasted a superabundance of politicians sheltering from the storm. Philip Stephens, Financial Times, April 8, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Politics  Practical politics consists in ignoring facts. Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams © 2024 Kwiple.com
Politics Prior to politics, beneath it, enveloping it, restricting it, conditioning it, is the underlying consensus on policy that usually exists in the society among a predominant portion of the politically active members. Without such a consensus no democratic system would long survive the endless irritations and frustrations of elections and party competition. Robert A. Dahl, On Political Equality © 2018 Kwiple.com
Politics Remember the phrase, “It's the economy, stupid?” It was coined by James Carville, strategist of US President Bill Clinton's successful 1992 campaign against George H W Bush. … Yet it doesn't appear to be working for Joe Biden, even though many of the top economic indicators … have been in his favour. … I suspect if Carville was on Biden’s team today, he might come up with a different phrase for the next election cycle: “It's geopolitics, stupid.” Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, February 21, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Politics A rudder, a bedrock, a cornerstone, a north star: people used to find  these things in their personal relationships. In their church, family, factory or town. As modernity scrambled those things, mostly for the good, the need to subsume oneself into a group was going to have to be met some other way. That turned out to be politics. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, December 2, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Politics Someone either lives “for”politics or lives “from” it. These are by no means mutually exclusive — a person generally does both, or at least he tries to. The person who lives “for” politics “organizes his life around it” — he makes  it his life's work, psychologically  speaking. … Those who make politics their permanent source of income  are those who live “from” the work of politics; those who do not are the ones who live “for” politics. Max Weber, “The Politician's Work” in Charisma and Disenchantment, translated by Damion Searls © 2020 Kwiple.com
Politics The task of a politician is not to inspire. It is to get a plurality of voters to say “Oh, go on then.” Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, February 21, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Politics A thick skin is a gift from God. Konrad Adenauer © 2024 Kwiple.com
Politics This is the basic dilemma of political judgments: how to create a common rule in a context of differences? Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics This notion, that the citizen's choice among determinedly centrist candidates makes a “difference,” is in fact the narrative's most central element and its most fictive. Joan Didion, “Insider Baseball” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics A two-party system in which both parties are committed to calibrating the precise level of incremental tinkering required to get elected is not likely to be a meaningful system,  nor is an election likely to be meaning- ful when it is specifically crafted as an exercise in personalismo,  in “appearing presidential” to that diminishing percentage of the population that still pays attention.  Joan Didion, “Eyes on the Prize” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics Voters want a leader to have definition, yes, but mostly in the negative. I won't raise the basic rate of income tax. I won't borrow to spend. I won't reopen Brexit. Beyond that, politicians should view policy detail as some football coaches view possession of the ball: a liability, a chance to make a mistake. A “positive vision” is not what clinches elections. It is the absence of a scary one.  Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, February 21, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Politics We have, at all times, two kinds of processes going on in inextricable connection with each other: interest politics, the clash of material aims and needs among various groups and blocs; and status politics, the clash of various projective rationalizations arising from status aspirations and other personal motives.  In times of depression and economic discontent — and by and large in times of acute national emergency — politics is more clearly a matter of interests, although of course status considerations are still present. In times of prosperity and general well-being on the material plane, status considerations among the masses can become much more influential in our politics. Richard Hofstadter, “The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt—1954” © 2020 Kwiple.com
Politics We have lost all sense of how weird it is to seek connection with others through politics. And how new. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, December 2, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Politics We should never interrupt the enemy while he is making a mistake. Edward Luce, Financial Times, October 14, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Politics We shouldn't leave the work of politics to people who run for public office. Hillary Clinton © 2016 Kwiple.com
Politics What generates the particular moral problems of politics is, pure and simple, the legitimate use of violence by some groups of people against others. Max Weber, “The Politician's Work” in Charisma and Disenchantment, translated by Damion Searls © 2020 Kwiple.com
Politics What Trump has done is take this human impulse toward cruelty, and elevate it to a political virtue. Adam Serwer © 2021 Kwiple.com
Politics When we talk about the process, then, we are talking, increasingly, not about “the democratic process,” or the general mech- anism affording the citizens of a state a voice in its affairs, but the reverse: a mech- anism seen as so specialized that access to it is correctly limited to its own professionals, to those who manage policy and those who report on it, to those who run the polls and those who quote them, to those who ask and those who answer the questions on Sunday shows, to the media consultants, to the col- umnists, to the issues advisers, to those who give the off-the-record breakfasts and those who attend them; to that handful of insiders who invent, year in and year out, the narrative of public life. Joan Didion, “Insider Baseball” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Politics When you're in a knife fight, you don't ask to be liked. Caroline Fraser, New York Review of Books, March 12, 2020, writing about Elizabeth Warren © 2020 Kwiple.com
Politics The whole secret of politics is knowing who hates who. Kevin Phillips, “godfather” of the Republican Party's “Southern strategy” © 2023 Kwiple.com
Politics Without defining an adversary, no hegemonic offense can be launched. However, this is precisely the step that social-democratic parties, converted to neoliberalism, are unable to make. This is because they believe that democracy should aim at reaching consensus and that it is possible to have a politics without an adversary. Chantal Mouffe, For a Left Populism © 2018 Kwiple.com
Politics  You don't raise the kind of looming statues [of white supremacists] I saw at the State House [of South Carolina] just for the hell of it. Politics is the art of the possible, but art creates the possible of politics. Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message © 2024 Kwiple.com
Politics You want results and you get consequences. Poltical truism © 2019 Kwiple.com
Populism It is not an ideology, but a political logic — a way of thinking about politics. John B. Judis, The Populist Explosion © 2017 Kwiple.com
Populists say Reduce politics to us vs. them © 2017 Kwiple.com
Post-truth [P]ost-truth amounts to a form of ideological supremacy, whereby its practitioners are tying to compel someone to believe in something whether there is good evidence for or not. And this a recipe for political domination. Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth © 2019 Kwiple.com
Post-truth Post-truth refers to blatant lies being routine across society, and it means that politicians can lie without condemnation. This is different from the cliché that all politicians lie and make promises they have no intention of keeping – this still expects honesty to be the default position. In a post-truth world, this expectation no longer holds. Kathleen Higgins, “Post-truth: a guide for the perplexed,” Nature, November 28, 2016 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Power Although they have amassed immense power and wealth, Putin and his immediate circle remain intensely resentful of the way in which the Soviet Union, Russia and their own service [the KGB] collapsed in the 1990s — and  great power mixed with great resentment is one of the most dangerous mixtures in both domestic and international politics. Anatol Lieven, Financial Times, March 11, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Power [T]he making of governmental decisions is not a majestic march of great majorities united upon certain matters of basic policy. It is the steady appeasement of relatively small groups. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Problem solving Mathematics is a useful tool for social science. In the actual solution of social problems, however, goals and intentions are the dominant factors. Albert Einstein © 2017 Kwiple.com
Problem solving Some problems can’t be solved  [such as revitalizing disindustrialized areas,  declining birth rates in advanced countries,  migration from poorer to richer neighbors], just mitigated at the edges. Pretending otherwise isn’t “optimistic” or enlightened, it is poisonous to a nation’s civic health. Oh, for more of the can’t-do spirit. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, March 19, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Problem solving There are such things as intractable problems. There is such a thing as rational despair. Saying so marks one out as callous. But not saying so, pretending that all questions have answers, is worse,  because if a problem persists, it  must be that  politicians are incompetent or don’t care. From an essentially positive premise  — that nothing is beyond human ingenuity — we arrive at a cynical and acrimonious atmosphere. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, March 19, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Profiles in courage Democrats are to poltical courage what Velveeta is to cheese. Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, March 16, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Public discourse If you're explaining, you're losing. saying among politicians  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Public discourse In the early 1990s, [Newt] Gingrich [then House Minority Whip] and his team distributed memos to Republican candidates instructing them to use certain negative words to describe Democrats, including pathetic, sick, bizarre, betray, antiflag, antifamily, and traitor . It was the beginning of a seismic shift in American politics. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Public discourse In the febrile, divisive state of our politics, it's not what you say, it's what you say about yourself by saying it that counts. David Runciman © 2017 Kwiple.com
Public discourse The pronouns “we” and “they” are the most important of all political words. They demarcate who's within the sphere of moral responsibiity, and who's not. Someone within that sphere who's needy is one of “us” – an extension of our family, friends, community, tribe – and deserving of help. But people outside that sphere are “them,” presumed undeserving unless proved otherwise. The central political question for any na- tion or group is where the borders of this sphere of mutual responsibility are drawn. Robert Reich, Christian Science Monitor, February 15, 2014 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Public discourse Republicans? They're all claws, sharp teeth and fangs when they fight. The Democrats? Their weapon of choice  is adaptive coloration. “I'm a leaf. Don't eat me.” “Vote for me – I'm the same pattern as the couch.” Bill Maher, Real Time With Bill Maher, March 16, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Public discourse You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose. Mario Cuomo © 2021 Kwiple.com
Punt returners say I feel like the Thanksgiving turkey. They bring you out on the tray and everybody oohs  and aahs, and then they begin to carve you up. Mario Cuomo responding to Nancy Pelosi, who asked him, when he became governor, “How's it feel to be governor?” © 2019 Kwiple.com
Racial inequality Malcolm X's vision of black politics, centered on putting community issues first, has collapsed under the weight of the Democratic Party's general uneasiness about tackling racial inequality and under the guidance of a race-neutral black president who distances himself from issues and policies targeted at eradicating racial inequality. Fredrick C. Harris, The Price of the Ticket   © 2016 Kwiple.com
Religion It once was generally assumed that religious beliefs shaped political views, not the other way round. But recent evidence indicates that the causality can run the other way:  panel studies have found that many people change their political views first and then become less religious. Ronald Inglehart, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Republicans Party One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal, and faithful, and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around the campfire but are lousy in politics. Bobby Jindal June 14, 1978, who set out the change all that © 2018 Kwiple.com
Resisters say Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them. Timothy Snyder, on corporeal politics, in On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century © 2017 Kwiple.com
Science Science cannot replace politics. When we come to decide on policy, we have to take into account many interests and values, and since there is no scientific way to determine which interests and values are more important, there is no scientific way to decide what we should do. Yuval Harari, Financial Times, February 26, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Selfie I never went on TV one time during the [2016 presidential] campaign. Not once. You know why? Because politics is war. General Sherman would never have gone on TV to tell everyone his plans. I'd never tip my hand to the other side. Steve Bannon © 2016 Kwiple.com
Selfie I never went on TV one time during the [2016 presidential] campaign. Not once. You know why? Because politics is war. General Sherman would never have gone on TV to tell everyone his plans. I'd never tip my hand to the other side. Steve Bannon © 2016 Kwiple.com
Selfie I'm probably never going to be president because I'm not a politician. I don't want to be a politician because politicians do what is politically expedient. I want to do what's right. Ben Carson, announcing 2016 presidential campaign © 2015 Kwiple.com
Selfie If I could believe that going to a barricade would affect man's fate in the slightest I would go to that barricade, and quite often I wish I could, but it would be less than honest to say that I expect to happen upon such a happy ending. Joan Didion, “On the Morning After the Sixties” © 2017 Kwiple.com
Selfie I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives. Mike Huckabee © 2015 Kwiple.com
Selfie I probably represented the worst of the American political system. I was a guy who was drawn to politics because of campaigns and not government. Stuart Stevens © 2020 Kwiple.com
Semi-loyal democrats It is semi-loyalists’ very respectability that makes them so dangerous. As members of the establishment, semi-loyalists can use their positions of authority to normalize antidemocratic extremists, protect them against efforts to hold them legally accountable and empower them by opening doors to the mainstream media, campaign donors and other resources. It is this subtle enabling of extremist forces that can fatally weaken democracies. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who acknowledge Juan Linz originated the notion and term "semi-loyal democrats", in New York Times, September 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Semi-loyal democrats Many mainstream politicians who preside over a democracy’s collapse are not authoritarians committed to overthrowing the system; they are  careerists who are simply trying to get ahead. They are less opposed to democracy than indifferent to it. Careerism is a normal part of politics. But when democracy is at stake, choosing political ambition over its defense can be lethal. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who acknowledge Juan Linz originated the notion and term "semi-loyal democrats", in New York Times, September 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Separation of powers In a sense, America benefits from a separation of powers that is deeper than the one codified by its founders. It is that between politics and culture; between formal and informal clout. One side has advantages in politics “proper”. The other gets to set the atmosphere in which it takes place. That this is an ill-gotten kind of peace does not mean there are better ones available. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, July 13, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Separation of powers Our third-party standing rules … exist to separate powers in that way — to send political issues to political institutions, and retain only legal controversies, brought by plaintiffs who have suffered real legal injury. If MOHELA had brought this suit, we would have had to resolve it, however hot or divisive. But Missouri? In adjudicating Missouri’s claim, the majority reaches out to decide a matter it has no business deciding. It blows through a constitutional guardrail intended to keep courts acting like courts.  Elena Kagan, dissent in Biden v. Nebraska, et. al. © 2023 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say Businessmen can run government better than politicians a.k.a. “the businessman fallacy” © 2018 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say Entertainers can run government better than politicians © 2018 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say Fox News commentators  can run government better than politicians © 2018 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say The Supreme Court is not a political institution © 2016 Kwiple.com
Snapshot In finance, his [UK prime minister Rishi Sunak's] former line of work, everyone is, almost by definition, open to a deal. And once it is negotiated, it is enforceable through the commercial courts. There couldn't be a worse grounding for politics, where neither condition obtains. Here is a world of entrenched positions (whether tribal or philosophical) and no  third party enforcement mechanism for those pragmatic compromises that do get made. No wonder he treats the right as just another market participant seeking terms. He has spent his political career offering half a loaf to people who want the whole boulangerie. Rishi Sunak portrayed by Janan Ganesh © 2023 Kwiple.com
Snapshot To a great extent, though, and starting with Brexit, he rode the tiger that now devours him. If he has an excuse, it is that Stanford business school, Goldman Sachs and the hedge fund world were the worst possible places in which to learn a central lesson of politics: some people have no price, or at least no price that it is conscionable to pay. Rishi Sunak portrayed by Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, December 12, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Snapshot By the standards of most US presidents, Biden's ego is modest. That is an admittedly low bar. But at 78, it is hard to claim you personify the wave of the future. The best kind of politics is to govern, rather than fret about your brand. This sets Biden apart from Obama as well as Trump. Not everything needs to be about him. Joe Biden portrayed by Edward Luce Financial Times, March 18, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Her fixation on bringing about Donald Trump’s political demise — possibly in the form of a jail sentence — has turned Cheney into America's most celebrated electoral suicide. Unlike the real thing, the politicl version can become a platform for rebirth. Liz Cheney portrayed by Edward Luce in Financial Times, August 17, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Snapshot [He] transformed American politics from one in which people presume the good will of their opponents, even as they disagreed, into one in which people treated the people with whom they disagreed as bad and immoral. He was kind of a McCarthyite who succeeded. Newt Gingrich portrayed by Barney Frank © 2018 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Politics is just a transaction to these people. Silicon Valley honchos portrayed by Jonathan Taplin © 2017 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Trump does much more than appeal to emotion. He insists that, in politics, emotion is all there is.  He interprets liberty as freedom from facts. More than a year after Trump lost the 2020 election, one of his voters was  asked why he continued to doubt the defeat. His reply: “It didn't smell right.” Donald Trump portrayed by Megan Garber, The Atlantic, January/February 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Snapshot  He altered the nature of American politics by making it an all or nothing battle in which winning was the only goal, no matter what the outcome. Donald Trump portrayed by Edward Luce Financial Times, August 26, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Some politicians don't answer the question. Mr. Trump can't answer the question. Donald Trump portrayed by Henry Mance, Financial Times, August 7, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Snapshot He is an unbelievable politician. Donald Trump portrayed by Anthony Scaramucci, White House Communications Director © 2017 Kwiple.com
Social media The cliché used to be that people had moved to social media for news. Well, they have moved to social media, but increasingly not for news.  After all, why let journalists you don’t trust tell you about politicians you don’t trust? Meta says news now accounts for under 3 per cent of what users see on its biggest platform, Facebook. Instagram, too, has deprioritised news. TikTok won’t even show political adverts. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, March 21, 2023 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Social media In an era of social media and nonstop news from endless outlets, the politicians who get the most attention are those who create unusual, supposedly “authentic” characters for themselves. This system rewards narcissists and what the philosopher Harry Frankfurt calls “bullshitters”: people distinct from liars in that they have no interest in what's true or not. They just say what sounds good. Their high verbal intelligence reduces their need for analytic intelligence. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, July 2, 2020,  on the rise of the attention economy and mediagenic rightwing nationalists  © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union Arguably, the real problem for the U.S. is not that it can be torn apart by political violence, but that it has learned to live with it. Fintan O'Toole, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union Before economic reform there will have to be political reform. Joseph Stiglitz, People, Power and Profits © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union Left-wing and right-wing political correctness running amok © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union Politicians everywhere genuflect to Silicon Valley moneybags © 2015 Kwiple.com
State of the union c “Politics” is a dirty word © 2016 Kwiple.com
State of the union c US politics is just getting worse  at a slower rate than those of its adversaries. This makes it the world’s tallest dwarf rather than a giant among nations. Edward Luce, Financial Times, October 14, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union What we've done in our politics is create a situation where we’re electing idiots. And so, I don’t look at it through the lens of, is this what I should do or what I shouldn't do. I look at it through the lens of, how do we elect serious people? And I think electing serious people can't be partisan. ex-congresswoman Liz Cheney © 2023 Kwiple.com
Stealth politics The practice of “stealth politics” [remaining silent about public issues] raises questions that go beyond the general issue of unequal, money-based political influence. Stealth politics also weakens political accountability. Stealthy billionaires can quietly use their money to promote ideas that are narrowly self-interested and in conflict with the views of most ordinary citizens. By remaining largely silent about their views and obscuring their financial contributions, billionaires can fly under the radar – promoting policies that most citizens reject but drawing little attention. Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens, Democracy in America? © 2019 Kwiple.com
Technology In actuality, the most crucial choices about the future of ordinary voters and their children are probably made not by Brussels bureaucrats or Washington lobbyists but by engineers, entrepreneurs, and scientists who are hardly aware of the implications of their decisions, and who certainly don't represent anyone. But voters can't see them or address them, so they lash out where they can. Yuval Noah Harari © 2016 Kwiple.com
Technology The technical is political. Yochai Benkler and David D. Clark, Dædalus, Winter 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Thinking The team [that tested and confirmed the hypothesis that low-effort, automatic thinking promotes political conservativism] also found they could push people to the right by distracting them, putting them under time pressure or simply telling them not to think too hard. Participants who were asked to deliberate more deeply, in contrast, shifted their political thinking to the left. New Scientist, December 16, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Thinking When researchers in the US loitered outside a bar in New England and asked customers about their political views, they found that the drunker the punter, the more right-wing their leanings. That wasn't because right- wing people drink more or get pissed more easily. Wherever people stood on the political spectrum when sober, alcohol shifted their views to the right. Why might that be? The researchers … pointed out that alcohol strips away complex reasoning to reveal the default state of mind. And that is why they were chatting to drunks: they were using drunkenness to test the hy- pothesis that low-effort, automatic thought promotes political conservatism. New Scientist, December 16, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Violence Violence is the ultimate foundation of any political order. Peter L. Berger, An Invitation to Sociology © 2021 Kwiple.com
 
the West To regard anything in public life as “inevitable” is to succumb to teleology. Still, with the passing of [Bob] Dole and much of his generation, it is hard to avoid the thought that societies grow rasher and more reckless as their memories of past crises fade. In other words, for the west, whose last existential mess is now a human lifetime ago, there is no avoiding the wages of success. It should expect its politics to wobble and lurch until such time as citizens taste the consequences again. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, December 7, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com