Politics in America is the binding secular religion.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that politics in America functions as a unifying belief system for its citizens.
Theodore White's quote highlights the central role that politics plays in American society, suggesting that it is not merely a system of governance but rather a secular religion that shapes the values, beliefs, and identity of the nation. Similar to how religion can unify people with shared beliefs and rituals, politics in America offers a framework for understanding collective interests, fostering a sense of belonging, and creating a narrative for the American experience.
In practice
In a discussion about civic engagement, one might mention, 'As Theodore White said, politics in America is like a binding secular religion.'
Generally students are the best vehicles for passing on ideas, for their thoughts are plastic and can be molded and they can adjust the ideas of old men to the shape of reality as they find it in villages and hills of China or in ghettos and suburbs of America.
Power in America today is control of the means of communication.
I happen to think that American politics is one of the noblest arts of mankind; and I cannot do anything else but write about it.
History is always best written generations after the event, when clouded fact and memory have all fused into what can be accepted as truth, whether it be so or not.
To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.
There is no excitement anywhere in the world, short of war, to match the excitement of the American presidential campaign.
It is not the function of government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.
Congressional Republicans are dismantling the limited environmental protections initiated by Richard Nixon, who would be something of a dangerous radical in today's political scene.
If, for example, existing government intervention is minor, we shall attach a smaller weight to the negative effect of additional government intervention. This is an important reason why many earlier liberals, like Henry Simons, writing at a time when government was small by today's standards, were willing to have government undertake activities that today's liberals would not accept now that government has become so overgrown.
When it comes to terrorism, governments seem to suffer from a collective amnesia. All of our historical experience tells us that there can be no purely military solution to a political problem, and yet every time we confront a new terrorist group, we begin by insisting we will never talk to them.
Governments are supposed to lie to their citizens.
For all the tough talk about China during the presidential debates, Romney and Obama evaded any mention of China's suspect human rights record, corruption, and rule of law._x000D_ By not tackling these controversial topics, the candidates are protecting a strategic partnership with China at the expense of essential human values and beliefs.
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