Politics & Power Quote by John Barry

You can hear the composer’s instinct for tension and release in the way Barry stages this thought: first, the swell of inevitability ("certainly", "a lot", "pressure"), then the clean, almost percussive cutoff of the reminder that matters most: "But there is no law". It’s not a sweeping ideological manifesto; it’s a pragmatic cue to the audience to separate atmosphere from statute, intimidation from obligation.

The specific intent is clarifying and, quietly, empowering. Barry frames political influence as real but categorically different from legal compulsion. That distinction sounds technical, yet it carries a democratic subtext: federal systems often work by persuasion, funding levers, and reputational arm-twisting long before they work by mandates. By naming "pressure" up front, he doesn’t deny the coercive feel of politics; he simply refuses to let that feel be mistaken for a binding rule.

Contextually, the line fits any moment when Washington rolls out a major policy update - especially tax policy - and states are expected to "conform" for administrative simplicity and economic alignment. The subtext is that conformity can be sold as common sense, even as dissent is portrayed as irresponsibility. Barry punctures that frame. His key move is the modesty of the claim: he’s not telling states what to do, just reminding them they still have a choice. In an era when politics often tries to simulate inevitability, that’s a small sentence with big constitutional consequences.