Politics & Power Quote by Donald Evans

“Intellectually honest” is doing the heaviest lifting here, and that’s the tell. Evans isn’t just praising the economy; he’s pre-emptively sorting the debate into two camps: the clear-eyed experts who agree with the administration’s rosy assessment, and everyone else, implicitly cast as partisan, sensationalist, or too clever by half. It’s a classic political move: define credibility so that dissent becomes a character flaw rather than an argument.

The verbal stumbles - the “uh,” the self-correction from “all” to “maybe not all,” then the oddly precise “95%…96%” - signal a speaker trying to sound candid while still landing a talking point. That wobble reads as authenticity theater: I’m not spinning, I’m just reporting what the smart people say. The near-mathematical specificity is especially revealing. It’s not evidence; it’s vibe dressed up as measurement, borrowing the authority of polling and expertise without the burden of citing either.

Contextually, this is governance-by-reassurance, the kind of messaging that shows up when public anxiety and economic data are diverging. “Powerful economy” is a broad, feel-good umbrella that can float over stagnant wages, regional job losses, or rising costs. Evans’ intent is to consolidate confidence: if almost every “honest” economist agrees, the audience is invited to relax - or to suspect that their own unease is being manufactured by dishonest critics. The subtext is blunt: trust us, and distrust the skeptics.