Jonathan Chait famous quotes

50 minutes ago

Netanyahu and his coalition have no strategy of their own except endless counterinsurgency against the backdrop of a steadily deteriorating diplomatic positionThe operation in Gaza is not Netanyahuâ€™s strategy in excess; it is Netanyahuâ€™s strategy in its entirety. The liberal Zionist, two-state vision(that) once commanded a mainstream position within Israeli political life has been relegated to a left-wing rump within it.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Wings #Two #Political
Activists measure progress against the standard of perfection, or at least the most perfect possible choice. Historians gauge progress against what came before it.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Perfect #Choices #Progress
Illiberal left ideology has its greatest strength on campuses because campuses are one of the few places in American life where a certain kind of far-left politics can actually impose hegemony on other ideas and really control the discourse in a way it can't in most places in American life where even moderate liberals are more of a minority.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Ideas #Hegemony #Minorities
President Obama is so much smarter and a better communicator than members of Congress in either party. The contrast, side by side, is almost ridiculous.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Party #President #Sides
That's an important Obama accomplishment: he raised taxes back to Bill Clinton levels, and made a major dent in inequality doing so. That's certain to be reversed, that's going to disappear. The Republicans are going to slash the rich's taxes.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Accomplishment #Important #Bills
Barack Obama is an intellectual.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Intellectual #Barack
Trump's not the future; his ideas and his coalition are a dead end.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Ideas #Dead Ends #Trump
I never thought Hillary Clinton was a very good politician.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Politician #Clinton #Very Good
The story of the Republican Party is of a far-right that has moved from the fringes of the party to a complete domination of the party. The moderate, mainstream and pragmatic leaders of the party have been pushed out or died off.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Party #Leader #Stories
Trump is what Obama critics think Obama is: Someone who's focused on symbolism rather than substance.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Thinking #Symbolism #Substance
Republicans fighting back against changes Obama made means those changes are important, as with most of the major progress in American history.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Mean #Fighting #Progress
Obama took 20 million people from the category of ignorables and put them into the category of unignorables. No one had to do anything for these 20 million people because they were outside the system. Now they're inside the system. Taking away their health care imposes all kind of political pain. We don't know the outcome, but every passing day it show how difficult it is for Trump to deprive them of what they now have.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Pain #People #Political
On Obamacare, every day that goes by I have more evidence that I wish I could put in my book, on how difficult it is for the Republicans to eliminate this law. They have no real alternative. They're afraid to take away health care from the 20 million people who now have it.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Real #Book #Law
In public, Barack Obama's giving the simple version of his beliefs for the mass public. In private, he can discuss it at a really high level.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Simple #Giving #Levels
Barack Obama is pretty similar to the person you see in public, at press conferences. He's a little saltier, a little more sarcastic and cutting.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Sarcastic #Cutting #Littles
There's an element of clowning and entertainment to Trump, that makes it surreal and hard to understand to what extent he is pretending to be a fascist or an authoritarian.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Elements #Entertainment #Pretending
I worry about the entire structure of American democracy under Trump.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Worry #Democracy #Structure
In some ways, Trump is just going to continue the trend: by continuing the norm-smashing behaviour that Republicans used in opposition.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Behaviour #Trends #Way
It's pretty clear that Hillary Clinton was a deeply, deeply flawed alternative. She had the wrong combination of the internal political chops to muscle out all the mainstream nominations from the field, leaving only Bernie Sanders, who was unacceptable to the Democrats' party establishment. But she also had a real lack of political skill that would enable her to win the general election.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Real #Party #Winning
I don't think the Democrats need a silver bullet.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Thinking #Bullets #Needs
Liberals tend to romanticize the past, past leaders' failures.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Past #Leader
Liberals will only support you after you're gone.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Support You #Support #Gone
Conservatives are much more comfortable supporting the leader who's in power than liberals.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Leader #Comfortable
It's absolutely true that people who believed Hillary Clinton would be a decent or even strong nominee need to think why that got that wrong. Laying the entire blame at the feet of Russia and the FBI is not sufficient. The biggest reason things went wrong were her own choices and her own weaknesses.
-- Jonathan Chait

#Strong #Thinking #Russia

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