Politics & Power Quote by George E. Brown, Jr.

Self-deception is the lubricant of government. Brown’s line lands because it doesn’t accuse politicians of being uniquely evil; it accuses them of being uniquely convinced. “Vast majority” is the tell: he’s not talking about a few bad actors but about the default operating system of political life. The sting isn’t corruption, it’s sincerity.

As a politician himself, Brown speaks from inside the machine, which gives the remark a particular bite. It reads less like outsider cynicism and more like weary field notes from someone who has watched colleagues translate ambition into virtue in real time. “Think they are functioning” does quiet work here: principle becomes a performance they believe in, a self-narration that makes every compromise feel like statesmanship and every power play feel like duty. The subtext is that the moral story politicians tell about themselves is not incidental; it’s what allows the job to proceed without constant psychic collapse.

Context matters. Brown was a mid-century liberal Democrat from California, steeped in the era when politics marketed itself as public service while simultaneously professionalizing into a permanent campaign. In that world, high principle isn’t just a personal belief; it’s a credential, a shield against the suspicion that politics is transactional. Brown’s observation hints at a darker irony: the more a politician believes in their own principle, the less reachable they are by accountability. If every decision is framed as righteous, criticism becomes not dissent but sabotage, and compromise starts to look like apostasy.

The quote works because it’s not a punchline; it’s a diagnosis of how power stays morally comfortable.