Politics & Power Quote by Joan Blades

The line reads like a political bridge built out of soft language and hard strategy. Joan Blades isn’t trying to win an argument point-by-point; she’s trying to change the temperature of the room. “It is time” signals impatience with partisan theater, but it’s also a cue for collective self-correction: we’ve been distracted, now let’s get serious. The phrase “issues that bring us together” performs unity rather than proves it, implying that consensus already exists if we’d stop indulging division.

The second sentence tightens the pitch. Parenting is invoked as a near-unassailable moral center, allowing policy to enter through the side door. “Supporting parents’ capacity” is carefully chosen: it suggests empowerment, not paternalism, and it sidesteps the culture-war minefield of telling families how to parent. “Love and resources” pairs the sentimental with the material, smuggling economics into a values frame. It’s a way to argue for concrete supports (child care, paid leave, health coverage, tax credits) without sounding like a spreadsheet or a slogan.

The subtext is also a rebuke to the idea that family outcomes are purely private responsibilities. If parents need “resources,” then the market alone isn’t enough; institutions have obligations. Coming from a business figure associated with civic tech and grassroots organizing, the context hints at a pragmatic coalition pitch: make family policy a cross-partisan infrastructure project. The clincher, “simply the right thing to do,” is less an argument than a moral veto, aiming to make opposition feel not just wrong, but small.