Politics & Power Quote by Gerald R. Ford

Ford’s phrasing turns political opposition into something closer to wartime siege: “coalition,” “waging,” “massive,” “all-out attack,” “total victory,” “total defeat.” It’s not accidental redundancy; it’s escalation by accumulation. Each clause tightens the frame from ordinary dispute to existential combat, positioning the president less as an officeholder facing criticism than as a besieged figure confronting a coordinated enemy.

The specific intent is defensive and disciplinary. By casting critics as a unified “propaganda campaign,” Ford doesn’t have to answer individual allegations, arguments, or scandals on the merits. He can delegitimize the whole ecosystem of scrutiny as strategic messaging rather than civic accountability. “Coalition of groups” is deliberately vague: it invites listeners to imagine a shadowy alignment - media, activists, partisan operatives, maybe even bureaucratic rivals - without naming anyone who could rebut the charge. That vagueness is a feature, not a bug; it widens the target while narrowing the president’s obligation to provide proof.

The subtext is about authority under threat. “Their aim is total victory” implies bad faith maximalism, as if compromise is impossible because the other side’s endgame is humiliation and removal. It also flatters the president’s supporters: if the attack is “massive,” then loyalty becomes a form of courage, and dissent inside the coalition looks like betrayal.

In context, a Ford-era presidency is inseparable from the aftershocks of Watergate, collapsing trust in institutions, and an aggressive new style of investigative politics and journalism. The line reads like an early template for the modern complaint that scrutiny itself is sabotage - a rhetorical move that turns criticism into conspiracy and survival into the central message.