All We Say Quotes

“Other Governments mainly depend for security upon the sword; ours depends mainly upon the friendship of its people. In all matters, in time of peace, in time of war, and at all times, it makes its appeal to all the people, and to all classes of the people. Its strength lies in their friendship and cheerful support in every time of need, and that policy is a mad one which would reduce the number of its friends by excluding those who would come, or by alienating those who are already here.[25]”
― Ben Rhodes, All We Say: The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches

“Other Governments mainly depend for security upon the sword; ours depends mainly upon the friendship of its people. In all matters, in time of peace, in time of war, and at all times, it makes its appeal to all the people, and to all classes of the people. Its strength lies in their friendship and cheerful support in every time of need, and that policy is a mad one which would reduce the number of its friends by excluding those who would come, or by alienating those who are already here.[”
― Ben Rhodes, All We Say: The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches

“All we say to America,” Martin Luther King said the night before he was killed, “is ‘be true to what you said on paper.’ ”[1] Those words about equality, liberty, and happiness itself are not self-executing. They must be spoken, again and again, so that the United States can be held accountable to its identity as a nation founded upon a creed; a creed that is aspirational and universal; a creed that is the antidote to the exclusionary form of American identity which leads inexorably to supremacy, suppression, and the destruction of democracy itself. Nations, like people, choose who we are.”
― Ben Rhodes, All We Say: The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches

“When public education is minimal, civic education is dumbed down, schools are venues for culture wars, and intellectualism is cast as a vice, it is easier for a ruling class or strongman to control the people who are supposed to be rulers in a democracy. Lies are more easily repeated. Enemies are more easily demagogued. Power is more easily concentrated. Autocrats manufacture ignorance as an electoral strategy. By contrast, true democracy—true Americanness—requires the promotion of better education to achieve better electoral outcomes.”
― Ben Rhodes, All We Say: The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches

“Laws and norms don’t have the power to protect democracy if people aren’t willing to enforce them.”
― Ben Rhodes, All We Say: The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches