Politics & Power Quote by Jeff Sessions

Sessions is doing two things at once: flattering a movement as broad-based while also laundering its anger into something that sounds like sober civic alarm. The opening arithmetic - one-third Democrat, one-third Republican, one-third independent - isn’t meant to be empirically verifiable; it’s meant to feel like common sense. By casting the Tea Party as a cross-partisan coalition, he strips it of the “fringe” label and recodes it as the authentic center of American life. It’s a political permission slip for moderates: you can sympathize with this energy without admitting you’ve joined a faction.

Then comes the real payload: “100 percent of them are sure.” That leap from mixed membership to unanimous certainty is the rhetorical tell. Sessions isn’t describing a constituency so much as constructing one, turning doubt into a liability. Certainty becomes a virtue, and disagreement becomes evidence you’ve been seduced by Washington.

The phrase “the agenda that is taking place in Washington, D.C.” keeps the culprit conveniently foggy. “Agenda” implies planning, coordination, intent - not messy governance. It’s a classic outsider frame: Washington as an alien city with its own scheme, aimed at “extremism” and “bankrupting” not just the nation but “every state.” That escalator clause widens the threat from budget politics to existential crisis, linking fiscal fear to cultural panic about federal overreach.

Contextually, it’s Tea Party-era messaging designed to unify resentment under a single story: the grassroots are diverse, but their outrage is pure, unanimous, and morally urgent. The subtext is less about who the Tea Party is than about who gets to claim “America” against “Washington.”