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.
People are tired of being kept from the dignity that allows them to make their own choices.
By a steady adherence to the Union we may hope, erelong, to become the arbiter of Europe in America, and to be able to incline the balance of European competitions in this part of the world as our interest may dictate.
Being political is an integral part of being Iranian. Our lives are defined by politics.
Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable β the art of the next best
Socialism is the democratisation of every level of society, or it is nothing. It is based on an understanding that the concentration of wealth and power leaves democracy hollowed out, and that simply trooping to a polling station every few years is an insufficient counterweight to the behemoths of global capital.
'Do you pray for the senators, Dr. Hale?' No, I look at the senators and I pray for the country.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.