Politics & Power Quote by Carol Moseley Braun

"I think Americans want to believe in this country again" is a politician’s soft-spoken thunderclap: a sentence that flatters the public while indicting the present. The key word is "again", doing the heavy lifting without naming a culprit. It assumes a breach of trust - government misfires, civic fatigue, cultural fracture - but keeps the blame offstage so listeners can project their own disappointment onto it. That ambiguity is the point. It’s a bridge phrase: Republicans can hear decay in institutions; Democrats can hear betrayal of promises; independents can hear gridlock. Everyone gets to feel seen.

Carol Moseley Braun’s intent reads as both reassurance and recruitment. "I think" signals humility, a strategic contrast to the iron certainty of campaign talk. It’s an invitation rather than a command. And "want to believe" doesn’t demand policy literacy; it asks for emotion. Belief is cheaper than consensus, but it’s also the prerequisite for any hard sell that follows. If you can restore the feeling that the country is worth investing in, you can ask people to risk something - a vote, patience with reform, faith in institutions that have disappointed them.

The subtext is also personal. As a barrier-breaking figure in national politics, Braun is speaking into an America that often treats representation as symbolism and then resents the bill. The line sidesteps identity as argument and goes straight for civic renewal, positioning her not as a candidate for a slice of the electorate but as a custodian of the national story. It works because it names the ache without prescribing the nostalgia.