Politics & Power Quote by Camille Paglia

Paglia’s sentence is a two-step: it flatters the fantasy of technocratic salvation, then knifes it with a smirk. “The moment is ripe” signals inevitability, the kind of historical mood-setting politicians and pundits love because it makes preference look like destiny. But the real engine is the juxtaposition of “practical, prudent economics” with “resurrected from the grave.” She frames Romney less as a charismatic leader than as a previously buried asset being hauled back up because the electorate, in a certain climate, craves a CFO more than a tribune.

The intent isn’t simply to endorse Romney; it’s to diagnose an American reflex. When anxiety spikes - recession talk, deficits, stagnation, whatever the headline - voters and media drift toward the performance of competence: “experienced businessman” as a stand-in for seriousness. Paglia’s subtext is that this is as much aesthetic as policy. “Practical” and “prudent” are cultural signals: adult supervision, spreadsheets, the return of restraint. They also imply a critique of the alternative: a politics of emotion, spectacle, or ideological purity.

Context matters: Paglia has long positioned herself as an anti-orthodoxy contrarian, skeptical of fashionable moralism and drawn to hard-edged realism. The graveyard imagery keeps her from sounding like a campaign surrogate. Romney’s “resurrection” suggests he’s not organically rising; he’s being summoned by conditions, by a media ecosystem eager for a “sensible” narrative, by a public ready to confuse managerial polish with economic cure.