"We can be more inclusive"
About this Quote
Four words, no villains named, no policy spelled out - and that is the point. "We can be more inclusive" is politician-speak at its most strategically elastic: a moral claim that sounds self-evident, a gentle nudge that implies progress without forcing a fight over specifics. The modal "can" matters. It offers possibility rather than accusation, sidestepping the implied rebuke of "we must" or "we have failed". It invites agreement from people who disagree on what, exactly, inclusion requires.
Bobby Scott, a long-serving Virginia congressman, has built a reputation around education, labor, and civil rights. In that orbit, "inclusive" is rarely abstract. It's code for who gets access: to quality schools, workplace protections, voting power, disability accommodations, fair policing, broadband, health care. The line functions as a coalition-building tool, the kind of phrase that can hold together constituencies that share a goal (broader participation) but not always the same priorities (race, class, immigration, LGBTQ rights, rural access).
The subtext is also a quiet indictment of existing systems: if we can be more inclusive, then current rules, norms, or gatekeepers are excluding someone. Yet the phrasing avoids naming the excluded or the excluders, reducing defensiveness and keeping the door open for bipartisan assent - at least rhetorically.
Its cultural potency comes from timing. In an era when "inclusion" is both a corporate slogan and a partisan flashpoint, Scott's understatement reads as pragmatic: progress framed not as revolution, but as basic competence in a diverse democracy.
Bobby Scott, a long-serving Virginia congressman, has built a reputation around education, labor, and civil rights. In that orbit, "inclusive" is rarely abstract. It's code for who gets access: to quality schools, workplace protections, voting power, disability accommodations, fair policing, broadband, health care. The line functions as a coalition-building tool, the kind of phrase that can hold together constituencies that share a goal (broader participation) but not always the same priorities (race, class, immigration, LGBTQ rights, rural access).
The subtext is also a quiet indictment of existing systems: if we can be more inclusive, then current rules, norms, or gatekeepers are excluding someone. Yet the phrasing avoids naming the excluded or the excluders, reducing defensiveness and keeping the door open for bipartisan assent - at least rhetorically.
Its cultural potency comes from timing. In an era when "inclusion" is both a corporate slogan and a partisan flashpoint, Scott's understatement reads as pragmatic: progress framed not as revolution, but as basic competence in a diverse democracy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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