Todd Gitlin Quotes

The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.

Politics is about winning. If you don't win, you don't get to put your principles into practice. Therefore, find a way to win, or sit the battle out.

Politics is not a game for naive thinkers. You may go in as an idealist, but you certainly won't come out as one.

I'm fascinated by politicians, because I suspect the huge majority of them go into it full of ideas and for the best possible reasons but end up being hijacked.

Neoconservatism is a blend of realism and idealism. We have the idealism of the liberals but we look at the reality of the world.

I know that liberalism isn't dead in this country.... It simply has, temporarily we hope, lost its voice.

We Republicans came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.

Major parties have lived more for patronage than principles; their goal has been to bind together a sufficiently large coalition of diverse interests to get into power; and once in power, to arrange sufficiently satisfactory compromises of interest to remain there.

I still believe in liberalism today as much as I ever did, but, oh, there was a happy time when I believed in liberals.

I don’t think you’d call the President political.

How splendid it would have been had we blazed a new and better trail! However, it is to be doubted whether this could have been done, even if those in authority had so decreed, for the peoples back of them had to be reckoned with. It may be that Wilson might have had the power and influence if he had remained in Washington and kept clear of the Conference. When he stepped from his lofty pedestal and wrangled with representatives of other states upon equal terms, he became as common clay.

A liberal is a man who leaves the room when a fight begins.

Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative

Politics is the art of stopping people from minding their own business.

Presidents tend to promote policies with grand nationalizing themes, whereas Congress is more at home with shapeless compromises agreeable to interest groups and geographic constituencies.

In domestic politics, presidents rarely wield independent power; what they wield is influence. Power is the capacity to make people do what you want them to do; influence is the ability to make them want what you want, at least temporarily.

Liberalism is essentially the belief that there can be a reconciliation of all difficulties and differences, and since there can't, it is a misleading way to approach politics.

The theory of politics that emerges from the political literature of the pre-Revolutionary years rests on the belief that what lay behind every political scene, the ultimate explanation of every political controversy, was the disposition of power

Liberal Republicanism has kept this party abreast of human need in a changing world.

Rockefeller brought a lot of balance to my administration…. I wanted him on the ticket but if Rockefeller had stayed on the ticket I would probably have not gotten the nomination. Ronald Reagan would have gotten the nomination. Rockefeller made the unselfish decision to withdraw so I could win the nomination.

The world has changed. People who care nothing about norms can no longer be dismissed as a fringe. For generations, left-wing activists have instructed students and other groups that norms are the building blocks of a rigged system that deprives them of power and denies their “selfless” desires. We don’t want to acknowledge what this has wrought. We have norms because they safeguard foundational principles, such as due process, the presumption of innocence, and freedom from unreasonable and unwarranted police prying. But the Left is no longer attached to those principles.

I'm a very proud Democrat, but I also like results.

I don't judge my effectiveness by how many words I say. I think liberals often see nuances in things... Conservatives tend to see things in black and white. It gives them an air of certainty and conviction that might make them more comfortable to watch.

Among my generation, there was a purist position that any contact with electoral politics was an unforgiveable compromise.

I didn't have any idea what politics was like. I was surprised at how difficult it is to get something done. In the private world, if I have an idea, I just do it.