Partisan Strife Quotes

A healthy degree of party unity among Democrats and Republicans has deteriorated into bitter partisan warfare.

Washington is a place where politics and economics often aren't on speaking terms.

We already have a sabbatical system. It's called opposition, and I've had enough of it.

[Referring to election campaigns:] The partisan strife in which the people of the country are permitted to periodically engage does not tend to the development of ugly traits of character, but merely discloses those that preexist.

The Democrats complain; I choose to compete.

I am not pollyannaish about the deep partisan battles that divide us.

We can't allow ourselves to descend down the rabbit hole of unbridled partisanship for partisan sake.

We are a divided nation in the worst sense of the word, and we don't hear the other side.

I think America has always been polarized.

At its worst, Washington is a place where name-calling partisan politics too often trumps policy.

We cannot afford the creeping paralysis that destroys the effective will of democracy - the paralysis carried by hate and rancor, between class and class, person and person, party and party, as plague is carried through the streets of a town.

You see, party labels do not ensure unanimity any more than trying to cast the challenge we confront as a people through a partisan prism.

I want us to war over principles, policies, programs and alternative visions of the future ... but I want us to be able to do that without turning the place [the House of Representatives] into a political Beirut.

Unlike any other leader in modern American history, we are led today by a president that has decided to pit Americans against each other.

I think partisanship is probably the greatest problem in Washington, D.C.

You've heard me question whether the partisanship in Washington has made us, as a nation, ungovernable - and, indeed, Democrats are doing their very best to make sure of it.

Partisanship is our great curse. We too readily assume that everything has two sides and that it is our duty to be on one or the other.

It seems to me that the time for subtlety in our American life has passed.

“The American people... are tired of the politics of personal destruction

Competition in politics is just as important as competition in everything else.

Activity in politics also produces eager competition and sharp rivalry.

Today, I think the attitude is that governing is not necessarily good politics, and the result is that it's much more partisan and much more divided.

Now we have blacks and whites fighting, reds and yellows fighting, Democrats and Republicans fighting, men and women fighting.

An election could end up exacerbating deep divisions.

It is dangerous to permit conscienceless party politics to proceed to a point which does not hesitate to drag foreign politics and relations to a point with a great neighboring country into the vortex of partisan strife.