Leadership Quote by Darrell Issa

"Every one of our congressional offices, every day, is under attack" is engineered less as a factual report than as a permission slip: a politician telling the public, the press, and his colleagues to treat routine governance as a battlefield. Darrell Issa isn’t just describing pressure; he’s converting it into siege logic, where criticism becomes aggression and accountability becomes sabotage. The absolutism does the work. "Every one", "every day" leaves no room for variation, nuance, or the possibility that some of that "attack" might be legitimate scrutiny.

The key move is the vagueness of "attack". It can mean anything from violent threats (which are real and serious) to angry emails, negative headlines, activist campaigns, or partisan opposition. That elasticity is the point: it bundles fundamentally different phenomena into one ominous category, so the audience feels endangered even if the evidence is mostly ambient hostility. It also preemptively delegitimizes dissent. If lawmakers are "under attack", then the people pushing for investigations, reforms, or transparency can be cast as adversaries rather than constituents.

Context matters: Issa, a combative House Republican known for oversight theatrics and high-stakes media framing, is speaking from a political ecosystem where outrage is currency and institutions are marketed like tribes. The line flatters Congress as a target worthy of constant fire while quietly shifting the burden of proof away from power. If you’re always under attack, you’re always justified in circling the wagons.