Politics & Power Quote by Hubert H. Humphrey

Humphrey’s line is a neat little trap: it opens with the comfort of a proverb and snaps shut into an indictment of the profession speaking it. “To err is human” is the oldest permission slip in the book, a way of lowering the stakes around failure by making it natural, even democratic. Then he pivots: “To blame it on someone else is politics.” The joke isn’t just that politicians scapegoat; it’s that politics institutionalizes a basic human reflex and rewards it with power.

The intent is double-edged. Humphrey, a consummate insider, isn’t posturing as above the system so much as admitting how it works in public - a rare rhetorical flex in a world built on plausible deniability. The subtext is a warning about incentives: in politics, the problem isn’t error, it’s the choreography after the error. Mistakes can be corrected; blame is a strategy. It redirects anger, protects careers, and converts complexity into a villain.

The line also functions as a self-defense mechanism. Coming from a mid-century liberal who lived through Vietnam-era backlash and the ruthless factional fights of the Democratic Party, it reads like hard-earned realism. He’s telegraphing that policy outcomes are often less decisive than narrative control - who gets tagged as the screw-up, who gets to look “responsible,” who survives the next news cycle.

Its wit works because it doesn’t moralize. It shrinks “politics” down to a recognizable habit, making cynicism feel less like ideology and more like observation.