Politics & Power Quote by James MacGregor Burns

Burns smuggles a moral claim into what looks like a neutral definition of leadership: power is justified when it refines the public. By invoking Woodrow Wilson, he reaches for the high-sermon tradition of American politics, where presidents don’t just manage interests; they narrate the nation to itself. The key phrase is “boldly interpreting the nation’s conscience.” Leaders aren’t pictured as mere delegates or technocrats but as translators of something half-formed in the public psyche, giving it language, direction, and urgency. “Boldly” matters: interpretation here is not timid polling; it’s an act of persuasion that risks backlash.

The subtext is both aspirational and quietly paternalistic. Burns argues that citizens have “everyday selves” and “better selves,” and that politics can pull the latter to the surface. That’s uplifting, but it also grants leaders unusual permission: if you can claim to be voicing the “conscience,” you can frame opposition as moral failure rather than legitimate disagreement. Wilson is an especially charged reference because his own moralized leadership coexisted with ugly blind spots and coercive impulses. Burns doesn’t mention that, but the choice adds tension: the rhetoric of uplift can empower reform and rationalize control.

Contextually, Burns wrote in a postwar, Cold War-inflected America obsessed with “great leaders” and national purpose, later crystallizing the “transformational” model against transactional, deal-making politics. The intent is to rescue leadership from cynicism, but the mechanism he celebrates - elevating a people “out of their everyday selves” - is also the mechanism by which leaders stage-manage virtue, turning politics into a contest over who gets to define the nation’s soul.