Dan Pfeiffer > Quotes

“He continued, “Here’s the advice I give everyone about marriage—is she someone you find interesting?” I was initially confused by the question, but I figured he must have a point. “You will spend more time with this person than anyone else for the rest of your life, and there is nothing more important than always wanting to hear what she has to say about things,” Obama continued. “Does she make you laugh? And I don’t know if you want kids, but if you do, do you think she will be a good mom? Life is long. These are the things that really matter over the long term.” We had just pulled up to the plane, and the world was waiting for us to get out. “Howli is incredibly interesting, funnier than I am, and will be a phenomenal mom,” I told the president. “Sounds like she’s the one. Lucky you,” Obama told me as he exited the limo and headed up the stairs to get on Air Force One. A year later Howli and I were engaged. And this is the advice I now give everyone about relationships. I credit Obama (most of the time).”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump

“The arc of the universe may bend toward justice, but it doesn’t bend on its own.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump

“I’ve never done meth,13 but I imagine the experience is much like using Twitter. You start it casually because you heard good things; next thing you know, you have been up for ninety-six hours, have lost all your teeth, and are living in a shopping cart outside the local supermarket.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump

“Trump’s election didn’t turn the Republican Party into a nihilistic, win-at-all-costs, political-racketeering scheme. The fact that the Republican Party is a nihilistic, win-at-all-costs, political-racketeering scheme is what led to the election of Trump.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“The best summary of Trumpism is “billionaire-funded racial grievance politics.” It’s plutocracy in populist clothing.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“We have to match the Republicans not in cynicism, but in strategy and toughness. Like John F. Kennedy, Democrats need to become “idealists without illusions.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“McConnell made a decision to make the economy worse to improve his political prospects. People lost their jobs, their homes, and their retirement savings because McConnell opposed any action that would help the economy if he thought it would also help Obama.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“America is a “democracy” governed by antidemocratic institutions, a country where a growing progressive diverse majority is being governed by a shrinking conservative white minority.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“First and most important, our culture was a reflection of the man we served. Obama is at his core a really chill guy and I mean that in the most presidential way. He is a nice guy who expects his team to be nice to one another. This trait comes from how he was brought up. Obama may have been born in Hawaii, but he is “Midwestern Nice,” which comes from his grandparents and their Kansas roots. He engendered loyalty to him and our cause by being loyal to his team. There were many times in the campaign where people, including some of our top donors, wanted the lot of us fired and replaced by people with more “DC experience,” and every time, Obama stood by his team. We didn’t know if we were going to win or lose, but we were going to do it together. If the person at the top of any organization does not reflect the values you want in the culture of that organization, it won’t work.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump

“During the campaign, I supported and encouraged the Clinton campaign strategy, but in hindsight, I lost track of one of the core lessons of Obama's success--campaigns are about telling the American people a story--a story about where we are, where we are going, and why you are the right person, and your opponent is the wrong person, to take the country there. It's a story that needs to be compelling, but also easily understood, and then driven home by the candidate and the campaign with relentless discipline.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump

“in the Trump era, Fox has become state television akin to something you would see in North Korea or Russia.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“Covering politics like sports has created a self-reinforcing incentive structure that is not dissimilar to the one the ESPN’S SportsCenter has on the fundamentals of basketball. There is a long-running concern from basketball purists that the fundamentals of the game – passing, defense, and footwork – are eroding. The theory goes that players want to be like the stars they see on SportsCenter. You don’t get on SportsCenter by doing the nitty-gritty work of winning basketball games. The more extreme the play, the more dramatic the showboating and celebrating, the more likely to be a feature in a coveted highlight segment. The reward system benefits the opposite behavior most basketball coaches would like to see in their players. This is the SportsCenter effect.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump

“The battle over government is not about the size of government, but the role of government. Republicans want the government to serve as a bulwark against the growing political and economic power of a diversifying America they view as an existential threat to their primarily white, Christian base. The Republican narrative depends on reinforcing lies and fear of the government.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook, and the MAGA Media Are Destroying America

“Fighting and losing is sometimes politically preferable to surrendering in silence.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“With that undeniably fair caveat, let me be very clear—the way politics is being covered, consumed, tweeted, and Facebooked is royally fucking up America. Full Stop. This is not just the media’s fault. Voters and politicians are also to blame because they willingly participate in and consume the spectacle.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump

“Maybe I am just looking for a silver lining, but I am hopeful that this will be the clarifying event that will show the public the two different visions for the country.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump

“Trumpism is a somewhat ambiguous concept. Trump is not a philosopher. He doesn’t have a political theory or any underlying beliefs. The only -isms that he has ever been associated with are racism and narcissism. The best summary of Trumpism is “billionaire-funded racial grievance politics.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“Facebook is doing more than letting politicians say what they want. Facebook is allowing politicians to pay them to target lies at the voters that Facebook’s data says are most susceptible to believing those lies. It’s disinformation for profit.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“Facebook + Fox = Fucked.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“If Mitch McConnell had been the leader of the Senate during Watergate, Nixon would have finished out his term, and the Republican Party would have named several airports after him.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“American history is littered with overly saccharine quotes about the role of the press, but this quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt is worth repeating, because it explains why the republicans spend so much time waging war against the press: “Freedom of consciousness, of education, of speech, of assembly are among the very fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be nullified should freedom if the press ever be successfully challenged.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook, and the MAGA Media Are Destroying America

“California, which has 40 million people, has the same number of senators as North Dakota, which has fewer than 1 million people. To put it another way, the vote of North Dakota is worth 40 times more than the vote of a Californian. The Republican majority in the Senate that confirms Trump’s right-wing judges and blocks progress on popular policies like gun control and a higher minimum wage is represented by a distinct minority of Americans.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“Politics is not that complicated, and it's in the economic interest of the pundits and consultants to make you believe you need a guru on an expensive retainer to understand it.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“Trump talks tough on China, but much of the Trump-branded products including his hideous ties are made there. President Trump has launched an incompetent trade war with China that cost American farmers and consumers billions. When he started losing, he tried to help farmers. But he screwed that up, too. Most of the money went to big corporations instead of family farms. The money for Trump’s corporate farm bailout was borrowed from— yes, you guessed it— China.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“His supporters are not dumb. They voted for Trump with eyes wide open to his flaws and the risks involved. Some were, of course, racist and appreciated Trump’s racism. Others were partisan Republicans who would vote for a mayonnaise sandwich if it had an R next to it. And finally, a lot of voters decided that their frustration with politics as usual was sufficient to justify a big gamble.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“Support Fair Fight 2020, Stacey Abrams’s organization to protect voting rights.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“the “perfect call,” but it was an imperfect crime.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“The fact that McCain's "Straight Talk Express" campaign was only two presidential campaigns removed from Donald Trump's "the press is the enemy of the people" rhetoric speaks to how quickly things changed.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook, and the MAGA Media Are Destroying America

“Every year, the American electorate is getting more diverse, which means that Republicans need to get more and more votes from a dwindling white base. This means the rhetoric is going to get more inflammatory. The appeals are going to be more explicit. This will threaten to tear apart the moral fabric of the country, ripping American democracy apart at the seams.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“lines between his criminality and his incompetence were blurred.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again