"The difference today is that, in both parties, the very extreme elements control the nomination process"
About this Quote
It lands like a grim procedural diagnosis: not that America is polarized, but that the machinery of choosing leaders has been captured. Hamilton Jordan isn’t moralizing about “civility.” He’s pointing to an institutional choke point: nominations. In a two-party system, the nomination stage is where democracy narrows into gatekeeping, and Jordan’s warning is that the gatekeepers are no longer the broad middle but highly motivated factions with time, money, and ideological purity tests.
The phrase “very extreme elements” does quiet rhetorical work. It’s deliberately unspecific, inviting listeners from either side to nod along while implicating both. That symmetry is the subtext: polarization isn’t a partisan sin, it’s a shared incentive structure. By saying these elements “control” the process, Jordan also hints at something more unnerving than mere influence. Control suggests a feedback loop where candidates learn that winning requires pleasing the loudest primary electorate, not the largest general electorate. The result is a politics that feels less like persuasion and more like compliance.
Context matters. Jordan came out of the Carter-era Democratic establishment, when reforms to democratize nominations (more primaries, weaker party bosses) also made the process more vulnerable to intensity politics. He’s diagnosing an unintended consequence: opening the doors didn’t automatically empower “the people”; it empowered the people who show up, donate, organize, and punish deviation. The line reads today as prophecy, but it’s really a clear-eyed insider’s memo about how incentives shape ideology into destiny.
The phrase “very extreme elements” does quiet rhetorical work. It’s deliberately unspecific, inviting listeners from either side to nod along while implicating both. That symmetry is the subtext: polarization isn’t a partisan sin, it’s a shared incentive structure. By saying these elements “control” the process, Jordan also hints at something more unnerving than mere influence. Control suggests a feedback loop where candidates learn that winning requires pleasing the loudest primary electorate, not the largest general electorate. The result is a politics that feels less like persuasion and more like compliance.
Context matters. Jordan came out of the Carter-era Democratic establishment, when reforms to democratize nominations (more primaries, weaker party bosses) also made the process more vulnerable to intensity politics. He’s diagnosing an unintended consequence: opening the doors didn’t automatically empower “the people”; it empowered the people who show up, donate, organize, and punish deviation. The line reads today as prophecy, but it’s really a clear-eyed insider’s memo about how incentives shape ideology into destiny.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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