Politics & Power Quote by DeForest Soaries

Soaries isn’t lamenting policy details here; he’s indicting a political culture that treats “reform” like a press-release noun rather than a governing verb. Calling it “an embarrassment” is a deliberate escalation: shame is the one currency that can still cut through partisan muscle memory. He’s not asking for agreement on every mechanism. He’s saying the baseline - that reform is real, necessary, and urgent - should already be settled among adults in charge.

The phrase “broad enough consensus” carries a quiet accusation. Consensus is usually framed as a lofty ideal, but Soaries uses it as a minimum competency test. If leaders can’t even form a wide agreement that the system needs fixing, the problem isn’t complexity; it’s incentive. Reform, in this framing, isn’t stalled by lack of information but by the political payoff of stalemate: fundraising off outrage, avoiding risk, protecting incumbency, and letting procedural fog substitute for accountability.

Then comes the dagger: “I could count the members of Congress on one hand.” That’s not statistical precision; it’s rhetorical humiliation. He compresses an entire institution into a single digit, implying unseriousness is not a fringe trait but the norm. The subtext is personal, too: Soaries positions himself as someone who has watched the process up close and found it wanting, signaling insider credibility while distancing himself from the club.

Contextually, it echoes recurring American cycles of reform talk - elections administration, ethics, campaign finance - where public trust collapses faster than Congress can admit the incentives are the engine of the dysfunction.