Politics & Power Quote by Mario Cuomo

Cuomo is picking a fight with the American appetite for spectacle, and he does it in a way that’s quietly theatrical. “Glitter” and “showmanship” aren’t just insults; they’re an accusation that politics has been dragged into the logic of entertainment, where charisma substitutes for competence and the crowd’s adrenaline becomes a stand-in for judgment. By naming that temptation, he signals that he knows exactly what sells in a democracy - and that he’s asking voters to buy something harder.

The line “hard substance of things” is deliberately blunt, almost tactile. It suggests budgets, tradeoffs, consequences: governance as friction, not fantasy. Cuomo’s intent isn’t merely to sound serious; it’s to recast seriousness as a moral posture. He frames the public not as victims of manipulation but as participants who can be trained, persuaded, even disciplined into a different kind of attention.

The subtext is also a tactical self-positioning. In an era defined by image politics and soaring patriotic performance (Cuomo’s national prominence peaked in the 1980s), he’s drawing a contrast between applause lines and governing lines. “Speeches that will bring people to their feet” evokes rallies and televised crescendos; “bring people to their senses” suggests sobriety, a return to reality, almost like waking up.

It’s persuasive because it flatters the audience’s better self without pretending the easier self doesn’t exist. Cuomo offers not anti-rhetoric, but a different promise for rhetoric: not to electrify, but to clarify.