Politics & Power Quote by Carl Paladino

Paladino’s anger is doing double duty here: it’s a complaint, but it’s also a credential. In three stacked sentences, he builds a case that New Yorkers aren’t merely dissatisfied; they’re being cheated. The repetition of “We are angry” turns a personal grievance into a shared identity, drafting the listener into a ready-made coalition. It’s less argument than recruitment.

The first move is transactional: the state takes “the highest income taxes and property taxes,” and citizens get “less and less for it.” That phrasing borrows the language of consumer rip-offs, implying government has violated a basic contract. It quietly sidesteps the messy question of what public spending actually buys (schools, transit, healthcare) and focuses on felt scarcity: pay more, receive less. That’s politics as a bad receipt.

Then he pivots from policy to legitimacy. “Incompetent, dysfunctional” isn’t aimed at a specific decision; it frames government itself as structurally broken and indifferent to “the desires of the people.” Subtext: ordinary democratic channels have failed, so a disruptor is justified.

Finally comes the vivid moral imagery: “cesspool,” “corruption,” “self-dealing,” with Albany cast as a closed ecosystem of insiders. Naming the capital, not just “government,” matters. It localizes the villain and taps a long-running New York narrative of machine politics and backroom dealing, especially potent in moments when budget crises, ethics scandals, and legislative gridlock made cynicism feel like common sense.

The intent isn’t to persuade skeptics with detail; it’s to legitimize resentment as rational, and to position the speaker as the instrument of payback.