Politics & Power Quote by Barbara Jordan

There is a practiced modesty in Barbara Jordan’s framing: she doesn’t declare the Democratic Party the nation’s savior, she positions it as the tool Americans repeatedly reach for when the country needs repair. The sentence starts with “Throughout our history,” a move that borrows the gravity of civic scripture. It also lets her smuggle in an argument about legitimacy. If people have “often turned” to parties, and “often” to Democrats, then the party isn’t just a brand; it’s part of the American problem-solving tradition.

Jordan pairs two motives that rarely sit comfortably together: “solve their problems” (practical, almost household language) and “uphold the principles of this nation” (moral and constitutional). That coupling is the subtextual pitch. She’s saying Democrats don’t just manage crises; they claim stewardship of national ideals. It’s an appeal designed for moments when politics feels like mere transaction. Jordan insists it’s also an argument about belonging and values.

The repetition of “turned to” does rhetorical work. It suggests trust earned over time, a pattern of recourse, like returning to an institution that has proved useful. At the same time, it’s a gentle rebuke to cynicism: if parties are easy to sneer at, history keeps showing they’re how Americans organize ambition into change.

Coming from Jordan - a constitutionalist voice shaped by civil rights struggle and the credibility of public service - the line reads as coalition-making. It invites listeners to see the Democratic Party not as a faction but as an ongoing vehicle for national renewal, while quietly daring it to live up to the role she’s assigning.