Politics & Power Quote by Christopher Darden

Darden is doing two things at once: he flatters the listener just enough to keep them leaning in, then he punctures a national self-image. “That’s an interesting question” isn’t just politeness; it’s a lawyer’s pacing move, buying time and asserting control over the frame. What follows lands like a gentle indictment: Americans “know very little about the law.” Not “some,” not “often,” but “in general” - a broad brush meant to normalize ignorance so it feels less like an insult and more like a diagnosis.

The subtext is sharper than the phrasing. Darden isn’t lamenting trivia gaps; he’s pointing at a civic vulnerability. When people treat law as background infrastructure - like plumbing or Wi-Fi - they only notice it when it breaks, and by then they’re at the mercy of whoever knows how the system actually works. “Take for granted” is the key phrase: it suggests not only complacency, but a misplaced trust that legality equals fairness, that courts automatically deliver truth, that rights enforce themselves.

Coming from Darden, the context matters. As a prosecutor whose name is inseparable from the O.J. Simpson trial, he watched legal procedure become mass entertainment and political Rorschach test. In that world, “knowing the law” gets replaced by knowing the storyline: sound bites, gotcha moments, the myth that a trial is a morality play with a clear hero and villain. His intent is quietly corrective: if a democracy runs on rules, then widespread legal illiteracy isn’t just embarrassing - it’s exploitable.