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America is not just a democracy, it represents a certain culture of competitive mobility and personality aspirations, politics is not merely a clash of interests, but a clash of dreams.

From a distance, the American political system is a remarkable success. We have accomplished the peaceful transfer of power for more than two hundred years, and that's unmatched by any civilization in human history. Up close, our political system still has all the ugliness and bad actors that you might suspect.

America is an outlier in the world of democracies when it comes to the structure and conduct of elections.

Politics has high and low moments. Sometimes it brings out the better angels of our nature; sometimes baser instincts.

Americans want government that is leaner, more efficient, and less intrusive into their personal lives.

I think the advantage of democracy is that it makes us less dependent on a group of leaders.

The American polity is infected with a serious imbalance of power between elites and masses, a power which is the principal threat to our democracy.

Then you get to the last half of the 20th century, Americans are getting very skeptical about their leaders and their institutions, and another place that is affected is parties and conventions.

The world of American politics is more contentious than it has ever been in my lifetime.

American politics, like most things, is a story of what statisticians describe as the reversion to the mean.