Politics & Power Quote by Tony Snow

Political season, Snow implies, is less a contest of ideas than a machine that grinds down character. The sting of "sometimes" is doing a lot of work: it’s a journalist’s hedge that reads like an indictment. He’s not claiming everyone turns clownish, just enough people, often enough, that the pattern becomes predictable. That modest qualifier makes the jab feel earned rather than performative.

"Decent people" is the bait. Snow isn’t aiming at the obvious villains; he’s targeting the neighbors, the coworkers, the principled staffer who suddenly repeats a talking point like it’s scripture. The line captures a familiar civic demotion: empathy replaced by contempt, nuance traded for slogans, friendship collateralized for a yard sign. "Act and talk" matters because campaigns don’t just change what people do; they change what they sound like. The public language of politics pressures people into simplified identities - loyalist, enemy, undecided - and then rewards them for staying in character.

"Perfect buffoons" lands with old-school, newsroom bite. Buffoonery here isn’t harmless silliness; it’s a performance of certainty, a willingness to look ridiculous to prove you’re on the team. The subtext is that campaigns incentivize that performance: outrage is viral, ridicule is bonding, and complexity reads as weakness. Coming from Snow - a journalist who also operated inside partisan Washington - the line carries insider fatigue. It’s not anti-politics; it’s a warning about what politics, marketed like entertainment, can do to otherwise decent human beings.