Politics & Power Quote by Brian Mulroney

Mulroney’s line has the clipped candor of someone who’s spent years watching ideals get ground down into workable coalitions. It flatters “friends” as the polite requirement of politics, then pivots to the harder truth: an enemy is the organizing principle. Friends help you govern; an enemy helps you win, define yourself, and keep your own side marching in the same direction even when they disagree on everything else.

The “madame” matters. It’s not just old-school courtliness; it frames the remark as practical counsel, almost conspiratorial, delivered from inside the club. Mulroney isn’t moralizing about polarization so much as describing politics as a narrative machine. An enemy simplifies messy policy into a conflict the public can recognize. It creates contrast, urgency, and a sense of stakes. It also offers politicians an escape hatch: disappoint your supporters, and you can still claim you’re holding the line against the other team.

Contextually, Mulroney’s Canada was defined by big, bruising fights that demanded coalition-building and antagonists in equal measure: free trade, constitutional battles, regional alienation, the rise of rival parties. His career proved the rule he’s articulating. The same capacity that allowed him to assemble broad alliances also required a foil to keep those alliances coherent.

The subtext is a warning disguised as advice. If you need an enemy “above all,” you may start inventing one when reality doesn’t supply it. That’s the dark efficiency of the tactic: it works even when it corrodes trust, reduces compromise to betrayal, and turns governance into permanent campaign. Mulroney’s realism lands because it’s not aspirational. It’s diagnostic.