Zephyr Teachout Quotes

People think that the politician is just part of a system, and whether they're lying or not doesn't matter.

A lot of politics plays at the level of myth, and if you understand that, then you feel like you have access to the secret language of politics.

Oftentimes people get it wrong when they say we need to educate voters first and then give them power. I tend to favor giving them power first.

One of the most dangerous things about Fox News isn't that it's right wing but that it's nihilistic. It takes away the capacity to believe in politics.

There is a long American tradition of suspicion of concentrated economic power because of its tendency to corrupt government and turn it from a democracy into a plutocracy.

Creativity is essential to any kind of joyful living. Sometimes I act, sometimes I draw, I paint, I write poems. I can't imagine living without it.

Things poll well, but people don't believe that politicians are telling the truth. Politicians might mention renewable energy, and the public will think, "That sounds good, but I don't believe they're going to do everything they can to build those towers."

Integrity is hard work. I do think the internet makes it harder because of the temptations of performance. You can perform and have integrity, but it's easier just to perform. So the temptations of social media lead to some dissonance.

If those people in power never made any mistakes, we'd be done for as a democracy. But people keep making mistakes. History is a series of mistakes.

I'm not from the arts, I'm a law professor. But I think we need more poetry in politics.

My current goal is to change the way we think about antitrust and anti-monopoly.

I think the reason you see so many people dropping out of politics is because there's an anti-poetic strain in modern political discourse.

This is what's so hard about our current politics: things poll well, but people don't believe that politicians are telling the truth.

I think about people and events in terms of archetypes a lot.

Integrity is hard work. I do think the Internet makes it harder because of the temptations of performance. You can perform and have integrity, but it's easier just to perform.