Politics & Power Quote by Barbara Jordan

Jordan is warning liberals against the most seductive form of moral certainty: the kind that curdles into withdrawal. “We must not become the new puritans” isn’t a cheap jab at religion; it’s a diagnosis of a political mood where righteousness becomes an alibi for refusal. In her framing, purity politics is a dead end not because standards don’t matter, but because contempt for the messy, compromised “society” you inherit guarantees you’ll never govern it.

The repetition of “We must” does two jobs at once. It’s a call to discipline - an insistence that democracy is work, not vibe - and it’s an attempt to bind a fragmented audience into a single subject. Jordan’s real subject here is legitimacy: the belief that the country can still act collectively without collapsing into coercion or nostalgia. That’s why she pairs “address” with “master.” The future isn’t a problem to comment on; it’s a force to be wrestled into shape through institutions, coalition-building, and patience.

Context matters: Jordan emerged as a moral force in the post-civil rights, post-Watergate era, when faith in government was shattered and cynicism started to sound like sophistication. Her answer isn’t sentimental unity; it’s a pragmatic civic nationalism that makes room for disagreement while demanding shared ownership. “It can be done” lands like a refrain because she knows hope has to be argued for, not assumed. In a country addicted to denunciation, Jordan is making a radical case for staying in the room.