Leadership Quote by Larry Craig

"Taken for a ride" is political genius because it sounds like a complaint your neighbor makes at the auto shop, not a thesis about late capitalism. Larry Craig reaches for the language of everyday suspicion: the sense that the fine print is always thicker, the fees always sneakier, the people setting the rules always out of reach. It’s a phrase built to travel - from gas prices to credit cards to cable bills - and that portability is the point. By keeping the grievance broad, he can court anger without owning a single messy policy detail.

The intent is to frame consumer frustration as a moral injury, not just an economic one. "Increasingly feeling" is the tell: it grants emotion the status of evidence. You don’t have to prove collusion or predatory pricing; you just have to validate a mood. That’s a classic move for a politician who wants the heat of populism with the flexibility of moderation.

The subtext is also a quiet repositioning. Craig isn’t saying consumers are making bad choices; he’s saying someone is doing this to them. The sentence constructs a villain-shaped absence - corporations, regulators, elites, take your pick - while leaving room for Craig to present himself as the guy who will "stand up" for the little person.

Context matters: late-20th and early-21st century politics saw rising distrust in institutions alongside deregulatory rhetoric. This line exploits that tension: a pro-market politician can criticize "the ride" without indicting the car.