Leadership Quote by Mo Udall

Consensus is Udall's punchline and his warning label. In a profession built on counting noses, "If you can find something everyone agrees on, it's wrong" reads like a heresy, but it's really a politician admitting what politics tries to hide: unanimity usually isn't truth, it's filtration. To get "everyone" on board, you sand off the edges that make an idea accurate, useful, or morally serious. The result is a policy fortune cookie: soothing, vague, and ultimately empty.

Udall, a Democratic congressman from Arizona with a reputation for plainspoken humor, is needling Washington's instinct to manufacture sameness. The subtext is that real problems create losers, tradeoffs, and discomfort. If a proposal somehow produces no friction, it probably dodged the problem rather than solved it. Think of bipartisan "motherhood and apple pie" bills that celebrate values while refusing to name costs, or unanimous resolutions that function as branding exercises.

There's also a darker reading: unanimity can signal coercion. In any institution, especially one as hierarchical and incentive-driven as Congress, agreement can be less about conviction than about fear of standing out, losing committee assignments, or angering donors. Udall's line invites skepticism toward the moments the political class performs unity for the cameras.

The craft here is the absolutism. "Everyone" and "wrong" are provocations, not premises. By overstating, Udall forces the listener to notice how often agreement is purchased by avoiding specificity - and how often the most necessary ideas begin as unpopular ones.