Leadership Quote by Barbara Boxer

Boxer’s line is a loyalty test disguised as a job description. She isn’t merely praising “working people”; she’s drawing a boundary around legitimate governance: if you’re not oriented toward wage-earners, you’re not fit to hold office. The bluntness of “we shouldn’t be here” does the heavy lifting. It turns policy disagreement into an ethical failing, collapsing the distance between representation and moral duty.

The phrasing is also tellingly improvised, almost breathless, because it stitches together two ideas that American politics often keeps separate: national security and economic security. By invoking “protect the country, from the standpoint of defense” and immediately pivoting to “protect workers,” Boxer is arguing that a paycheck is part of the social contract, not a private matter. The subtext is a rebuttal to the small-government posture that treats job loss as market weather. Her verb choice - “protect” - recasts labor policy as a form of defense, suggesting that insecurity at home is itself a vulnerability.

Contextually, this is Democratic-populist rhetoric from a senator long associated with labor and middle-class constituencies, delivered in an era when globalization, outsourcing, and post-9/11 security politics competed for airtime. Boxer’s move is to refuse that competition: she yokes them together. If you can authorize wars and fund weapons, the argument goes, you can also justify industrial policy, workplace protections, and job creation. The kicker is the implicit accusation: leaders who talk tough on defense while shrugging at stagnant wages are defending a country that fewer citizens can actually live in.