Politics & Power Quote by Jim Hightower

It lands like a joke with no punchline because the punchline is structural: if corporations are the government, then “democracy” becomes a customer service desk. Hightower’s line isn’t trying to prove a legal merger of boardrooms and bureaucracies; it’s compressing a whole ecosystem of influence into a blunt identity swap. Lobbying used to be framed as persuasion from the outside. This sentence insists the boundary is gone, the way a river stops being a “crossing” once the bridge is owned by the same people charging the toll.

The intent is agitation, but it’s also diagnostic. By skipping policy detail, Hightower forces the listener to confront a lived reality: regulations written by industry veterans, revolving-door appointments, campaign finance that turns elections into an investment class, and “public-private partnerships” that read like privatization with better PR. It’s a populist rhetorical move, yes, but not a naive one. The cynicism is strategic: if you still believe corporations merely whisper in politicians’ ears, you’ll keep arguing about ethics reforms. If you believe they’ve become the state, you start talking about power, ownership, and capture.

The subtext is an accusation of impersonation. Government is supposed to mediate between competing public needs; corporate logic optimizes for shareholders. When those logics fuse, the language of “jobs” and “growth” becomes a moral shield for extracting value upward. Context matters: Hightower emerges from late-20th-century backlash against deregulation and the post-Citizens United era of political spending. The quote works because it’s not subtle. It’s a doorway drug to outrage, and a dare: prove me wrong in the legislation you live under.