Politics & Power Quote by Russ Feingold

There is a particular kind of moral fury that only works when it’s welded to procedure, and Feingold knows it. By aiming his fire at “the attorney general or anyone on this floor,” he isn’t just criticizing an administration; he’s indicting the Senate’s habit of outsourcing its conscience to executive-branch assurances. The line is built as a preemptive veto on future spin: don’t come back with soothing claims about “restraint and care” after you’ve already asked for, and been granted, extraordinary powers.

The phrase “this government” does quiet, devastating work. It’s not “that administration,” not “those officials.” It widens the blast radius to the whole apparatus and, crucially, to the lawmakers who keep feeding it authority. Feingold’s subtext is a warning about institutional memory: once you normalize surveillance, detention, secrecy, or emergency exceptions (the post-9/11 backdrop is hard to miss), the next expansion becomes easier to justify because yesterday’s overreach becomes today’s baseline.

The rhetorical move is also a refusal of the classic Washington script where trust replaces verification. Feingold isn’t arguing policy on the merits in this sentence; he’s attacking the premise that trust is an acceptable governing mechanism at all. “Power we give it” yanks responsibility back to Congress: if the state abuses power, it’s not merely an executive failure, it’s a legislative one. It’s less a complaint than a line in the sand: stop romanticizing restraint; start designing limits.