Politics & Power Quote by Nicholas D. Kristof

Public compassion, Kristof implies, is cheap; political anger is the scarce currency that moves presidents. The line is built on a quiet disillusionment with how the American conscience works: people can absorb the headline of Darfur, register the moral instruction ("we should be doing more"), and still never convert that awareness into the one pressure tactic Washington reliably responds to - sustained outrage that threatens careers.

Kristof is writing as a reporter-advocate, and the sentence performs a tight, almost clinical separation between sentiment and accountability. "Have heard of" is damningly faint praise, a benchmark so low it sounds like success in a media ecosystem where distant suffering competes with domestic spectacle. The phrase "think we should be doing more" captures the comfortable posture of ethical agreement without cost. It flatters the reader just enough to keep them listening, then undercuts them with the pivot: they "aren't actually angry". That adverb - actually - is the needle. It punctures the self-image of a country that wants credit for caring while avoiding the discomfort of demanding action.

The context is mid-2000s Darfur, when genocide talk circulated widely, celebrity activism spiked, and policy responses lagged. Kristof isn’t only indicting a president; he’s diagnosing an electorate trained to experience atrocity as a news cycle, not a civic assignment. The subtext is strategic: if you want intervention, don’t just raise awareness - manufacture consequences. Anger, not sympathy, is the lever.