There were big problems with every system, and there always have been.

In a liberal scientific society, to claim that you are above error is the height of irresponsibility.

We don't have a crisis of leadership in Washington. We have a crisis of followership.

Parties and political systems used to be about excluding renegades who would never play well with others in government. Now it's actually systematically screening them in.

If every negotiation is conducted in public, then the minute one person says, well, what if we try this, next thing you know, the interest groups have piled all in, and the political opponents have shot it to pieces.

People think that politics just somehow magically organizes itself. It doesn't work that way. You need to assemble these huge coalitions of 535 politicians on Capitol Hill, and tens of thousands of interest groups, and tens of millions of voters, and assemble all those in government to get stuff done.

We started tearing down the seniority system on Capitol Hill. All of that begins in the '70s. It accelerates and continues in the '90s, and it's going on to this day.