Obama offers himself as a catalyst by which disenchanted Americans can overcome two decades of vicious partisanship, energize our democracy, and restore faith in government. George Packer More Quotes by George Packer More Quotes From George Packer This is what Newt Gingrich has wrought - is a politics in which it's very easy to destroy and very hard to build. George Packer newts hard easy The biggest issue for me is whether large numbers of Americans can begin to think that government can actually help make the country a fairer place. And that's partly a matter of policies that achieve results in terms of reducing inequality and raising middle-class and working-class incomes, which have been flat for decades. But it's also symbolic and rhetorical, it's whether Hillary Clinton can - or whoever's president - can persuade Americans that it's happening and that they can begin to trust their elected officials a little bit more and their institutions of government a little bit more. George Packer class country thinking If Hillary Clinton becomes president, how is she going to be able to get the country behind her when she seems like a political figure from another era? George Packer political president country Hillary Clinton's such a classic Democratic political figure and believes so much in institutions and in gradualism in the old way of reaching compromises with the opposition in the back rooms. That's what she did in Congress. It's what I imagine she'll try to do in the White House. George Packer white house believe I don't think of Hillary Clinton as a bad choice. She's an uninspiring choice. She is a deeply imperfect choice, largely for reasons of her own tendency to get into a defensive crouch and create greater problems for herself and the rest of us by refusing to have a transparent reckoning. George Packer imperfect choices thinking I do think Donald Trump would be a catastrophic turn in American history. George Packer american-history would-be thinking Politics should be, you know, as exciting as literature, as exciting film. George Packer film literature should Politics should seize the imagination. George Packer imagination should When you go to Washington and get off at Union Station, as I sometimes do, and see the Capitol building, I get this hopeless feeling that comes over me. George Packer unions hopeless feelings I think in the '50s, the percentage of Americans employed by the private sector who were in unions was above 30 percent. And now it's in the single digits, so it plummeted. And with the plummeting of unions came the weakening of an organized working-class voice in politics. George Packer voice class thinking Globalization looked like it was going to answer all the economic questions of class. Turned out not to be the case. George Packer economic answers class Under Bill Clinton we had a roaring economy that looked really good. George Packer roaring economy bills I will find any excuse to go into somebody's study or ask them what they are reading. I can't think of too many other things that say what goes on in someone's head than the books they have. George Packer reading book thinking Depended on the soldier. To relax, most of them put on headphones or played video games. Later in the war some of the younger officers began to read a lot of anthropology because they realized that the basic problem was that they were trying to fight a war in a culture they didn't understand. They might have read someone like Margaret Mead. George Packer fighting games war When I interviewed Paul Bremer in his office he had almost no books on his shelves. He had a couple of management books, like "Leadership" by Rudolph Giuliani . I didn't take it as an encouraging sign. George Packer couple office book One book that I heard was circulating the Green Zone was "Bureaucracy Does Its Thing" by Robert Komer , who worked for President [Lindon] Johnson in Saigon. This book is about the inevitably of screwing up when a country takes on a war with so little understanding of the country they are fighting. George Packer war country book I don't know if it's a male thing, but I've always been interested in how people respond to the stresses and dangers of war, how they react under fire. In the extremity of war, character is revealed. George Packer stress character war I've read a lot of war writing, even World War I writing, the British war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves's memoir "Goodbye to All That," and a civilian memoir "Testament of Youth" by Vera Brittain . George Packer writing goodbye war You don`t have to be foreign policy expert to succeed as president, but you have to have ice water for blood. George Packer ice-water president blood American politics can produce great men and women, but it is profoundly insular. George Packer american-politics produce men
