Politics & Power Quote by David E. Price

The line reads like a cool splash of water on the fever dream that one-party rule is an instant fix. David E. Price, a veteran legislator and institutionalist by temperament, is pushing back on a recurring campaign fantasy: win the whole machine and you can finally govern without excuses. His diction is doing the work. "Unified party control" sounds clinical, almost managerial, not triumphant. "Organs of government" makes the state feel like a body with competing systems, not a single lever waiting to be pulled. And "no panacea" is the killer: a deliberately sober word that implies people keep looking for miracle cures anyway.

The intent is less to scold partisans than to puncture the idea that politics becomes simple once the other team is sidelined. The subtext: when a party controls Congress and the presidency (and maybe the courts at the margins), blame becomes harder to outsource and internal fractures become the real opposition. Coalitions are stitched from regions, donors, committees, and ideologies; unified control just moves the fight indoors. It also hints at the structural obstacles that survive elections: Senate rules, bureaucracy, interest groups, budget constraints, constitutional limits, and the basic fact that voters want incompatible things.

Contextually, Price is speaking from inside an era of heightened polarization where "governance" is marketed like a product launch. His warning is institutional memory disguised as understatement: power concentrates responsibility, not competence, and victory doesn’t dissolve complexity.