Politics & Power Quote by Jim DeMint

DeMint’s line is built to do two jobs at once: cool impatience about democracy and heat up resolve for the policies he wants attached to “freedom.” By invoking “our own history,” he borrows the moral authority of American mythmaking, where the messy, slow grind of institution-building gets recast as proof of national seriousness. The phrase “take decades to mature” quietly lowers expectations. It’s a rebuttal to the fantasy that elections alone can stabilize a country, and it also functions as political cover: if outcomes disappoint, the timeline becomes the alibi.

Then he tightens the screw with a maxim that’s basically a brand slogan of post-9/11 politics: “freedom is not free.” It sounds like civic wisdom, but it’s doing rhetorical work: converting cost (war, surveillance, austerity, casualties, long occupations) into virtue. “Not free” is conveniently vague. It doesn’t name who pays, how much, or whether the bill is worth it. It just frames sacrifice as the entry fee for the good life, which makes dissent feel like freeloading.

Context matters: DeMint’s career sits in an era when American leaders sold democracy promotion abroad while fighting over the size of government at home. The quote bridges those impulses by treating “democratic institutions” as both fragile and sanctified, and by treating “freedom” as a substance secured through conflict. The subtext is a demand for patience with power and deference to the people wielding it.