Politicians From Chicago

"There's no doubt that we have other problems with Iran. But personally, I'd rather deal with the other problems having put that lid on their nuclear program than still to be facing that."

"He says it's a secret plan, but the only secret is that he has no plan."

"I support our democracy. And sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But I certainly will support the outcome of this election."

""She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted." So must we all."

"Attempting to define reality is a core feature of authoritarianism. This is what the Soviets did when they erased political dissidents from historical photos. This is what happens in George Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, when a torturer holds up four fingers and delivers electric shocks until his prisoner sees five fingers as ordered. The goal is to make you question logic and reason and to sow mistrust towards exactly the people we need to rely on: our leaders, the press, experts who seek to guide public policy based on evidence, ourselves."

"You are graduating at a time when there is a full-fledged assault on truth and reason. Just log on to social media for 10 seconds. It will hit you right in the face. People denying science, concocting elaborate, hurtful conspiracies theories about child abuse rings operating out of pizza parlors. Drumming up rampant fear about undocumented immigrants, Muslims, minorities, the poor. Turning neighbor against neighbor and sowing division at a time when we desperately need unity. Some are even denying things we see with our own eyes. Like the size of crowds. And then defending themselves by talking about “alternative facts.”"

"As the history majors among you here today know all too well, when people in power invent their own facts and attack those who question them, it can mark the beginning of the end of a free society. That is not hyperbole. It is what authoritarian regimes throughout history have done. They attempt to control reality. Not just our laws and our rights and our budgets, but our thoughts and beliefs."

"Look at the budget that was just proposed in Washington. It is an attack of unimaginable cruelty on the most vulnerable among us, the youngest, the oldest, the poorest, and hard-working people who need a little help to gain or hang on to a decent middle-class life. It grossly underfunds public education, mental health, and efforts even to combat the opioid epidemic. And in reversing our commitment to fight climate change, it puts the future of our nation and our world at risk. And to top it off, it is shrouded in a trillion-dollar mathematical lie. Let's call it what it is. It's a con. They don't even try to hide it."

"Here’s what I want you to know: We got through that tumultuous time. We revved up the engine of imagination and innovation. We turned back a tide of intolerance and embraced inclusion. The we who did those things were more than those in power who wanted to change course. It was millions of ordinary citizens, especially young people, who voted, marched, and organized. You may have heard that things didn’t exactly go as planned, but you know what? I’m doing okay. I’ve gotten to spend time with my family, especially my amazing grandchildren. Long walks in the woods. Organizing my closets, right? I won’t lie — Chardonnay helped a little."

"What’s happening to families at the border right now is a humanitarian crisis. Every parent who has ever held a child in their arms, every human being with a sense of compassion and decency, should be outraged."

"David Plouffe: “So [Trump’s] gonna try and drive the people not to vote for him but just to say, ‘you know, you can’t vote for them either.’ And that seems to be, I think, to the extent that I can divine a strategy, their key strategy right now.” Hillary Clinton: “Well, I think there’s gonna be two parts and I think it’s gonna be the same as 2016: ‘Don’t vote for the other guy. You don’t like me? Don’t vote for the other guy because the other guy is gonna do X, Y and Z or the other guy did such terrible things and I’m gonna show you in these, you know, flashing videos that appear and then disappear and they’re on the dark web, and nobody can find them, but you’re gonna see them and you’re gonna see that person do these horrible things.’ “They’re also gonna do third party again. And I’m not making any predictions but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far, and that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up. Which she might not, ‘cause she’s also a Russian asset.”"

"I'm the most investigated innocent person in America."

"The technology platforms are so much more powerful than any organ of the so-called mainstream press, and I do think that there has to be not just an American reckoning but a global reckoning with the disinformation, with the monopolistic power and control, with the lack of accountability that the platforms currently enjoy... In particular Facebook, which has the worst track record for enabling mistruths, misinformation, extremism, conspiracy, for goodness’ sake, even genocide in Myanmar against the Rohingya. So governments are going to have to decide right now that the platforms have to be held to some kind of standard, and it’s tricky."

"Because imagine the combination of social media, the algorithms that drive social media, the amassing of even larger sums of money through the control of certain cryptocurrency chains -- we`re looking at not only states such as China or Russia or others manipulating technology of all kinds to their advantage. We`re looking at non-state actors, either in concert with states or on their own, destabilizing countries, destabilizing the dollar as the reserve currency."

"We need a bigger geopolitical strategic understanding of what China is up to. And I know that the people inside the Biden administration are trying to do that because, you know, Trump's very narrow trade and tariff kind of approach was -- was just missing the picture of what's happening in the South China Sea, what's happening throughout Central and South Asia, what's happening across Africa and Latin America. And that's what the United States needs to be paying attention to."

"The Republican Party and its mouthpieces now regularly spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories. It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result. As citizens, we must hold them accountable for their words and the actions that follow.""

"I don't feel any satisfaction. I feel great profound sadness that we have a former president who has been indicted for so many charges that went right to the heart of whether or not our democracy would survive."

"The only satisfaction may be that the system is working. That all of the efforts by Donald Trump his allies and his enablers to try to silence the truth, to try to undermine democracy, have been brought into the light and justice is being pursued."

"Whether it's Facebook or Twitter or X or Instagram or TikTok, whatever they are, if they don't moderate and monitor the content we lose total control and it's not just the social and psychological effects it's real harm, it' s child porn and threats of violence, things that are terribly dangerous"

"Manipulation by wily women is a sexist trope as old as Adam and Eve, but this is an ugly new twist. Instead of women tempting men with vice, now the great fear is that women will tempt men with virtue."

"Empathy won't destroy civilization; indeed, it just might save it. We can debate policies. We can debate theology. But if we give up on empathy, we give up on any real chance of coming together to solve our problems. Empathy does not overwhelm our critical thinking or blind us to moral clarity. It opens our eyes to moral complexity. It's not a sign of weakness; it's a source of strength. This might be lost on tycoons who have a huge financial interest in leaving the rest of us behind on their way to Mars, but one might hope Christians would know better."

"Trump, especially in this second term, has styled himself as a gold-plated Caesar, the farthest thing from an American ideal. Instead of the decency of Washington we get the decadence of Caligula; rather than the humility of Lincoln, the cruelty of Nero. You'd think good Christians would see the irony of throwing their lot in with a wannabe Roman emperor, but the whole point of a cult of personality is to leave you blind and afraid."

"How could you be so damn stupid? How could you do that?"

"You stupid f—ing moron. How could you risk your presidency for this?"

"If you want to remain on this detail, get your fucking ass over here and grab those bags."

"You fucking Jew bastard!"

"Fuck off! It's enough that I have to see you shit-kickers every day. I'm not going to talk to you too. Just do your goddamn job and keep your mouth shut."

"Can't we just drone this guy?"

"But if everybody's watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position."

"We will make sure that the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted."

"My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders."

"We discovered Japan for Heaven sakes."

"I want to defend fracking under the right circumstances... I want to defend this stuff. And you know, I'm already at odds with the most organized and wildest [of the environmental movement]. They come to my rallies and they yell at me and, you know, all the rest of it. They say, 'Will you promise never to take any fossil fuels out of the earth ever again?' No. I won't promise that. Get a life, you know."

"I knew it. I knew this would happen to me... They were never going to let me be president."

"We need a bitch facing down terrorists, Iran and Congress."

"Hillary Clinton is a centrist Democrat who is more hawkish than President Obama and far more principled and knowledgeable about foreign affairs than Trump, who is too unstable and erratic to be entrusted with the nuclear triad he has never heard of. Even in his prepared foreign policy speech couldn't pronounce "Tanzania." For all her shortcomings (and there are many), Clinton would be far preferable to Trump."

"I support Clinton for president because she is well-qualified for the office and would be a competent, skilled president and commander in chief."

"The candidate Hillary Clinton had come to St. Louis and told us that "All lives matter," while we chanted and marched in the streets every day demanding justice for Mike Brown Jr."

"Former Secretary Clinton has dedicated her life to serving and engaging people across the world in democracy. These efforts as a citizen, an activist, and a leader have earned Secretary Clinton this year’s Liberty Medal."

"I am watching Hillary Clinton in her victory speech in New Hampshire… they just threw a bunch of college kids behind her, and had her talk about student loans, and had her daughter come out for a long awkward hug… does anyone actually buy it? Surely young people are too media savvy to be fooled by this kind of shit. Do we live in a democracy so we can just keep electing the same families? Barack is the first candidate in my lifetime to strip some of this bullshit away, and I just hope we don't blow this chance. Man if we miss this opportunity we don't deserve it… how bad does it have to get?"

"Hillary Clinton is now poised to become the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, but she simply lacks the integrity and temperament to serve in the office."

"When I'm at the bottom, she's Hillary Rodham!"

"When she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs."

"The cab's idling out front, and she's opening a new bottle of wine."

"Hillary’s 2016 presidential run resembled nothing so much as a counterinsurgency campaign, designed to beat back challenges to existing authority, specifically herself. She collaborated with party bosses to undercut her primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, who posed a threat precisely because he was more popular with the party's younger, idealistic voters."

"I could tell that she was well prepared to serve as president. I'd never met anyone with deeper knowledge about policy than Hillary, and she seemed unflappable and genuinely interested in using the power of the office to benefit the lives of those who don't often have a strong voice in our democracy. She also had a reputation for being politically cautious."

"I can't make her younger, taller, or change her gender. I can't do anything other than to tell you who she is."

"Yes, I think it's an obscene amount of money. You know we had some protesters last night when we pulled up in San Francisco – and they're right to protest, they're absolutely right, it's an obscene amount of money. The Sanders campaign, when they talk about it, is absolutely right, it's ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics, I agree."

"Without nepotism, Hillary would be running for the president of Vassar."

"As First Lady, she successfully balanced the tensions between activism and traditionalism that challenged many First Ladies in the twentieth century. She is outspoken and passionate about her projects, such as military families and childhood obesity, but they stay within a conventional female sphere of interest...Despite the significant successes of women in politics, the nation's top offices, the presidency and vice presidency, remained elusive.In her campaign for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination, New York Senator Hillary Clinton dramatically challenged the political "glass ceiling." Throughout the primary season, Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama were locked in a tight and contentious race for the Democratic presidential nomination. The contest between Clinton and Obama raised troubling questions. Their campaigns traded charges of sexism and racism, in a conflict reminiscent of the Stanton/Douglass disagreements over the Fourteenth Amendment. Despite Clinton's Senate experience, the active role she took in the presidency of husband Bill Clinton, and her forceful campaign style, pundits talked about her clothing and speculated about how she responded to key events-charging her with lack of emotion in some cases and too many tears in others. For both candidates, the issues were at times subsumed by questioning about whether the American people were ready to elect either a woman or an African American to the presidency."