Politics & Power Quote by Ken Mehlman

In an era when American politics markets outrage as a lifestyle, Mehlman’s line is a deliberately old-fashioned act of party management: a reminder that democracy depends on losers consenting to keep playing. The phrasing matters. “I will always remember” frames civility not as etiquette but as moral discipline, an insistence that memory can outlast the heat of the news cycle. Then he widens the obligation: “we must all remember,” turning a personal stance into a communal standard, implicitly rebuking anyone in his own coalition who treats contempt as strategy.

The real work happens in the distinction between “political rivals” and “enemies.” Rivalry is bounded; it presumes shared rules, mutual legitimacy, and an eventual rematch. “Enemies” implies existential threat, the kind of language that justifies any tactic because the other side is cast outside the national “we.” Mehlman is trying to close the door on that escalation, to reattach partisan conflict to constitutional norms.

The context is hard to miss: post-9/11 polarization, the Iraq-era fever of loyalty tests, and a Republican Party learning how effective demonization can be as an organizing tool. Mehlman, a GOP operator who later became known for acknowledging party complicity in voter suppression and for his own public coming-out, sounds like someone aware of what happens when rhetoric outruns governance. “They deserve our respect” isn’t sentimental; it’s prophylactic. Respect here is less about liking Democrats and more about preserving the legitimacy of the system that allows Republicans to win again.