Alain Touraine Quotes

Members of Congress have more in common with the people they hobnob in Washington, D.C., than they do with the people they're supposed to represent.

I was talking to Marylanders... What we were hearing, everywhere, was an overwhelming sense of frustration. People felt a huge disconnect between Annapolis and the rest of Maryland.

There's a great public disinclination toward politicians.

I think politicians are so far out of step with what people really want.

Your ruling class don't care about what happens to you. What seems like some enormous upset in your community is undetectable from a helicopter or a speeding motorcade. They are pitiless.

People don't trust party leaders.

When citizens believe that the elite care more about those across the ocean than those across the train tracks, insurance has broken down, we divide into factions, and those who are left behind become angry and disillusioned with a politics that no longer serves them.

The public think the politicians don't know or care about their lives; and the politicians feel misunderstood.

This weakening is worsened by the widening distance between the governed and their governments.

The characteristic political attitude of today is not one of positive belief, but of despair.

I look at my people, and I look at those who control them - the political elite. And the sad thing is that the elites are just not interested in the welfare of the people.

I'm your average Joe guy. I don't really care for politicians.

Nobody cares what any politician in Washington says.

People don't like politicians.

I think there is a break down of trust generally, between people and politicians. I think that's come about for a whole variety of reasons.

Politically active people felt more and more disenfranchised, particularly during the ultra-New Labour years.

Never has the political class or the mainstream media that covers them been more out of touch with the American people than they are today.

I'm sure we, the American people, are the butt of jokes by those in power.

Politics has come to resemble a cynical team game played by politicians, while the public has been pushed aside as if sitting on the seats of a stadium in which passion for politics is gradually making room for blindness and desperation.

I've got four lovely children, ten lovely grandchildren, and I left parliament to devote more time to politics, and I think that what is really going on in Britain is a growing sense of alienation. People don't feel anyone listens to them.

I am part of a political class that is paralyzed by the prospect of risk.

Did you ever wonder who when our problems are getting larger and larger, out politicians are getting smaller and smaller?

One of our statesmen said, "The curse of this country is eloquent men.

Politics, as a body, has failed the people.

All my trust in the politicians had been rubbed away.