Sasha Weiss:

... Underneath the pomp and idealism our political leaders are con men, telling us a story about ourselves that may not be true.

Jonathan Chait:

But it feels true, and that is the important thing.

James Surowiecki:

It seems that con artists, for all their vices, represent many of the virtues that Americans aspire to. Of course, the fundamental difference between entrepreneurs and con artists is that con artists ultimately know that the fantasies they're selling are lies.

Tom Nichols:

Your political analysis as a layman ... probably isn't -- indeed, almost certainly isn't -- as good as you think it is.

Michael Hobbes:

We're just magnifying what we know, zooming in on the crumbs as if it will reveal where they lead.

Evgeny Morozov:

No laws and tools will protect citizens who, inspired by the empowerment fairy tales of Silicon Valley, are rushing to become data entrepreneurs, always on the lookout for new, quicker, more profitable ways to monetise their own data – be it information about their shopping or copies of their genome. These citizens want tools for disclosing their data, not guarding it. Now that every piece of data, no matter how trivial, is also an asset in disguise, they just need to find the right buyer.