Quotes of the Week

Plus links to some of the best articles and essays.

Apr 25, 2025

**Democrat Rep. Jim Clyburn blamed the mainstream media for his party’s cratering support, April 18, 2025.**

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“Every time I see those cars, I see Elon Musk saluting the country as a Nazi. I made a mistake because I’m basically living in terror every day that the country is turning into Nazi Germany. I’m truly terrified because Elon was unelected and they’re deporting migrants without a trial.” — Natasha Cohen, a Brooklyn therapist who left a brick scrawled with a swastika and the word “Nazi” on a parked Tesla
“I knew after reading Project 2025 that if Trump got in, it was time for me and my non-binary child to leave the country.” — Rosie O'Donnell, during an interview with CNN
“The reason the south has languished for generations is that the white leadership cares more about preserving a white male hierarchy than making their society better. We’re now seeing that on a national scale. The Trump administration is turning the US into deep south style autocracy.” — Alejandro Caraballo, American civil rights attorney and instructor at the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic
“Trump gutted civil rights enforcement in education at the same time he’s promoting HBCUs. The intent is clear, resegregation. They want to ensure elite institutions such as Harvard are only attended by white men.” — Also Alejandro Caraballo
“I can’t even begin to tell you just how disastrous a traditionalist Catholic pope being elected would be. It would be gasoline on a conflagration of fascism sweeping the globe.” — And also Alejandro Caraballo
“Gotta say, I struggle on some days to reconcile the fact that millions of Americans actually WANT to live in a country with viruses spreading freely, thousand of people getting kicked out of their jobs, billionaires feasting on the government and people being snatched off the street by secret police. The fact that this and Trump are so many Americans’ heart’s desire makes me question whether this country can ever be saved from its own cynicism and hatefulness.” — Joy Reid
“The parent can choose to put their kid elsewhere. You don’t have to send your kid to public school. I’m struggling to see how it burdens a parent’s religious exercise if the school teaches something that the parent disagrees with. You have a choice. You can homeschool them.” — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, regarding a major case concerning whether school systems should be required to allow parents to opt their kids out of classes because of religious objections to LGTBQ+ material
“We go out there as Democrats all the time and say ‘Democracy is the most important thing. We have to defend democracy.’ We fail to acknowledge that for this generation democracy is what put us through school shooting drills and school shootings, it’s what’s put us through the climate crisis and so much more.” — DNC Vice Chair David Hogg, during an interview with CBS News
“I think the message coming from the Democratic Party is a good message. The problem we’ve got is that we have to depend upon the media to deliver it. We have The Washington Post, for instance, caving to this wanna-be dictator, and we’ve got other media entities that seem to rather push the narrative that will bring eyes to their newspaper or to their television sets and not really give a fair hearing or reporting to what we’re doing.” — Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn, speaking on MSNBC
“If Jesus were alive today and in the United States, this administration would have already taken him and removed him from this country without due process, claimed he was a member of the MS-13 gang as a way to try to justify not giving him due process.” — Hope Walz, daughter of Tim Walz
“I am a serious lawmaker, but if you try me, you will find out. I’m truly a black woman!” — Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett, speaking at a National Action Network conference in D.C.
“Black people in America lived under autocracy for most of our history. Black people in the Deep South in many places live under a version of autocracy today.” — Author and progressive policy advocate Heather McGhee, during an appearance on Comedy Central’s The Weekly Show podcast
“The Trump Administration is going after Harvard for the same reason that Vladimir Putin went after universities in Russia, that Xi Jinping went after universities in China, that Viktor Orban went after universities in Hungary — authoritarians don’t want alternative sources of information, of moral judgment, of alternative ideas.” — NYT’s Nicholas Kristof, speaking on CNN
“This narrative that school closures were an immense, irreparable harm to kids is unsupported by data. But that’s besides the point. It was really a right-wing ploy to get parents back to work and undermine teachers unions and public education more broadly.” — The Intercept’s Walker Bragman
“Before I describe the details of Russia’s recent online influence campaigns, I would like to call upon you to stand firm against another autocracy: The United States of America.” — Nina Jankowicz, former head of Biden’s infamous Disinformation Governance Board, testifying before the European Parliament
“Larry’s piece is not equating Trump with Hitler. It is about seeing people for who they really are and not losing sight of that.” — NYT Deputy Opinion Editor Patrick Healy, regarding a guest essay by comedian Larry David titled “My Dinner With Adolf,” which was penned after Bill Maher met with Trump at the White House
“The fact of the matter is that if Donald Trump had gone on that debate stage and, you know, shit his pants and had a heart attack, Republicans would still be there saying, ‘Yeah, he’s our guy.’ That meltdown that we had publicly is a discipline problem.” — Alex Soros, who says that Biden was “assassinated” by the “pundit class” following his disastrous debate performance
“21 Years Later, Deported Back to a ‘Home’ He Barely Knew” — Headline of a NYT article about an illegal immigrant convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to 15 years in prison, and who was given a final order of removal in 2008 but was released onto the streets of New York thanks to Biden’s open border policies
“Joe, we’re here to help. We're worried about you. We're here to gently guide you back into the loving arms of liberal consensus.” — Malcolm Gladwell, in a message to Joe Rogan
“Trump, Musk, Vance, I’m going to make these easy for you: The only way to increase the white birthrate is to make white people poor again.” — MSNBC’s Elie Mystal