"The demonstrators in Ukraine will persevere and succeed, or grow tired, cold and fade"
About this Quote
It lands like a forecast, not a promise: two outcomes, one romantic, one bodily. By pairing “persevere and succeed” with “grow tired, cold and fade,” Bob Schaffer frames political struggle as an endurance test where history is decided less by legitimacy than by stamina and temperature. That’s not accidental. “Cold” isn’t just meteorology; it’s a quiet reminder of where Ukraine’s street politics so often unfold, and how quickly moral urgency can be reduced to logistics: coats, food, nightfall, fatigue.
As a politician, Schaffer’s sentence reads like calibrated ambivalence. He grants demonstrators the dignity of possible victory while reserving the right to shrug if they lose momentum. The verb choices do the work. “Persevere” implies admirable grit; “fade” implies a natural dimming, not repression, not crackdown, not state violence. Agency subtly shifts away from power and toward protesters’ bodies, as if the main threat to democracy is hypothermia and boredom rather than coercion.
The subtext is a familiar Washington-era caution: don’t bet too hard on a foreign uprising, because crowds are fickle and optics change. It also functions as a hedge against accountability. If the protests succeed, he sounded supportive; if they fail, he sounded realistic. The line’s rhetorical trick is its false symmetry. “Succeed” carries world-changing consequence; “grow tired” is mundane. Placing them on the same scale flattens the moral stakes into a coin flip, a stance that protects the speaker more than it illuminates Ukraine.
As a politician, Schaffer’s sentence reads like calibrated ambivalence. He grants demonstrators the dignity of possible victory while reserving the right to shrug if they lose momentum. The verb choices do the work. “Persevere” implies admirable grit; “fade” implies a natural dimming, not repression, not crackdown, not state violence. Agency subtly shifts away from power and toward protesters’ bodies, as if the main threat to democracy is hypothermia and boredom rather than coercion.
The subtext is a familiar Washington-era caution: don’t bet too hard on a foreign uprising, because crowds are fickle and optics change. It also functions as a hedge against accountability. If the protests succeed, he sounded supportive; if they fail, he sounded realistic. The line’s rhetorical trick is its false symmetry. “Succeed” carries world-changing consequence; “grow tired” is mundane. Placing them on the same scale flattens the moral stakes into a coin flip, a stance that protects the speaker more than it illuminates Ukraine.
Quote Details
| Topic | Perseverance |
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