Welcome to the realm of George Packer’s profound insights and thought-provoking reflections. George Packer, an accomplished journalist, essayist, and author, is renowned for his keen observations on politics, society, and the human condition. With a career spanning decades, Packer has delved into the intricacies of American life, exploring its triumphs, challenges, and contradictions with unparalleled depth and clarity.
Through his articles, essays, and books, such as The Unwinding and Our Man, Packer illuminates the complexities of contemporary America, offering incisive commentary on its shifting landscapes and evolving identities. His writing resonates with readers, capturing the essence of the times and providing invaluable perspectives on the forces shaping our world. Whether dissecting the inner workings of Washington politics or chronicling the lives of ordinary citizens, Packer’s words carry weight and significance, inspiring contemplation and dialogue.
It’s a cliche that the Senate is broken, and like most cliches, it’s true. George Packer
It’s – the working class of San Francisco and the Bay Area is being pushed out of its old neighborhoods because of the skyrocketing cost of housing, and there’s no real working class left because these are jobs for engineers and managers and designers – very smart people. George Packer
Liberal democracies like ours seem, for the most part, to have learned how to avoid meticulously planned mass-casualty plots with the complexity and scale of 9/11. But they don’t know how to keep their citizens safe at night clubs and concerts, in supermarkets, on beachfront promenades, from truck drivers. George Packer
I worked as a carpenter for a few years. I began writing. I wrote a book about my time in Africa – that came out in 1988 – called ‘The Village of Waiting.’ George Packer
White male privilege remains alive in America, but the phrase would seem odd, if not infuriating, to a sixty-year-old man working as a Walmart greeter in southern Ohio. George Packer
A religion is not just a set of texts but the living beliefs and practices of its adherents. George Packer
That’s why I’m not on Twitter and don’t have an iPhone. It’s not because I’m superior to it: it’s because I would be a slave to it, and I don’t want that to happen. George Packer
WikiLeaks is not a news organization; it is a cell of activists that is releasing information designed to embarrass people in power. George Packer
No one pretends anymore that the Olympics are just about sports. It’s routine to talk about what effect holding the Games in this or that capital will have on the host country’s international reputation, how a nation’s prestige can be raised by its medal count. George Packer
So many writers grew up in tortured isolation, in revolt against their families. I and my sister were in a house where writing was considered the worthiest thing you could try to do. George Packer
Americans almost never elect presidents on the basis of foreign policy. George Packer
‘The Assassins’ Gate’ is a very tightly controlled story of the ideas that led to the war and the consequences of those ideas in Iraq, and there is no doubt about where it is going and what kind of groundwork is being laid. George Packer
I think the mix of narrative and analysis that the ‘New Yorker’ requires is a perfect expression of what my parents each gave me. George Packer
Mark Zuckerberg has started an advocacy group for immigration reform. George Packer
I thought Obama was in a position to do some things. I thought 2008 was a turning point in history, with him and the Wall Street crash happening at the same time, but you just learn that those entrenched powers were really entrenched; those decayed institutions were really decayed. George Packer
Pay attention to other people’s nightmares because they might be contagious. George Packer
When I interviewed Paul Bremer in his office, he had almost no books on his shelves. He had a couple of management books, like ‘Leadership’ by Rudolph Giuliani. I didn’t take it as an encouraging sign. George Packer
Lawyers, judges, doctors, shrinks, accountants, investigators and, not least, journalists could not do the most basic tasks without a veil of secrecy. Why shouldn’t the same be true of those professionals who happen to be government officials? George Packer
Every movement, to stay alive – a very difficult thing to do historically – has to find a way to harness that initial surge of emotion and turn it to the hard, steady, un-sexy work of recruiting new members, strategizing, negotiating with those in power, keeping itself going. George Packer
The difference between a reporter, a newspaper columnist, a paid speaker, a television personality, a radio talk show host, a blogger, a movie producer, a publicist, and a political strategist, is growing less – and not more – distinct. George Packer
By the fall of 2007, my last remaining Iraqi friend in Baghdad had left. Once he was gone, my connection to the country and the war began to thin, even as the terror diminished. I missed the improvement that came with the surge, and so, in my nervous system, I never quite registered it. George Packer
Discerning the legal difference between what WikiLeaks did and what news organizations do is difficult and would set a terrible precedent. George Packer
Much of the international unease with the Sochi Games has focused on the threat of terrorism, Putin’s domestic repressiveness, and the Russian campaign of anti-gay propaganda. George Packer
A curious thing about this rarefied world is that bloggers are almost unfailingly contemptuous toward everyone except one another. George Packer
Partly what I’m writing about is the way taboos get toppled. George Packer
Last year, in the year 2008, it just became normal to watch great American institutions crumble, almost dissolve like sand. George Packer
In its lowest, most common form, inspiration is simple charisma that becomes magnified by the media, as with Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton. George Packer
Foreign policy exactly suits Obama’s strong points as a leader, which turn out not to be giving the masses a clear sense of direction and hope, but instead exercising good judgment on a case-by-case basis while thinking many steps ahead of the present moment. George Packer
Even while writing about foreign places, I have been in a way writing about America, because that’s the subject that interests me the most. I’m attached to it, critical, but it’s definitely my country, and maybe even more so when I’m overseas. George Packer
Certain murderous ideas are in the air worldwide, and they are finding individuals in scattered places in different ways, and every attack spreads them further, plants an idea in a new head. George Packer
America’s vast population of working poor can only get so poor before even Walmart is out of reach. George Packer
What I found in Silicon Valley is an industry that’s sort of been kept a very far remove from Washington and had an attitude of ‘Just let us do our thing and make the miracles that people love around the world and leave us alone.’ George Packer
For 20 years, my mother, my sister and I had seldom spoken of my father. If he happened to come up in conversation, pain and embarrassment entered the room and stayed until he disappeared back into the silence with which we all felt more at ease. George Packer
With work increasingly invisible, it’s much harder to grasp the human effects, the social contours, of the Internet economy. George Packer
While starving refugees in Homs were providing target practice for government snipers, Bashar al-Assad’s strongest international backer was in Sochi, at the Iceberg Skating Palace, visibly moved, smiling with deep satisfaction, as the Russians beautifully glided and leaped their way to the gold medal in the team event. George Packer
Before Google, and long before Facebook, Bezos had realized that the greatest value of an online company lay in the consumer data it collected. George Packer
Al Qaeda asks its recruits to establish their bona fides as a condition of membership, even requiring answers to a long questionnaire. But ISIS has democratized and globalized jihad by lowering the entry bar to an eve-of-destruction YouTube pledge of allegiance to the caliphate – and even that could probably be waived. George Packer
I am not a pure fiction writer, nor am I an academic writer. Somehow I ended up in this blended area of literary journalism. George Packer
Millions don’t rally to the banner of Uncertainty. George Packer
Part of the mystique of blogs is their protean quality: They work both sides of the divide between politics and media, further blurring the already fuzzy distinctions between reporter, pundit, political operative, activist, and citizen. George Packer
I actually think that self-interest is overrated as an all-purpose guide to political motive. It leaves out something at least as powerful and immovable – individual psychology. George Packer
Inequality saps the economy by draining the buying power of Americans whose incomes have stagnated, forcing them to rely on debt to fund education, housing, and health care. George Packer
Together, Apple and Walmart represent the intense separation of American life into blue and red, rich and poor, overpriced and undersold, hyperconnected and left behind. George Packer
A great writer requires a great biography, and a great biography must tell the truth. George Packer
The Olympics are never just about sports. George Packer
Jay-Z is a hero, Sam Walton is a hero – these are not exactly communitarian champions. These are – in some cases, literally; in others, just figuratively – gangster heroes. That’s who is worshipped: people who get away with it. George Packer
I’ve been interested in American politics since I was eight. That was in 1968. It was an interesting year. I was a huge Eugene McCarthy supporter, so I guess he was the first senator I really knew about and cared about. George Packer
The constellation of opinion called the blogosphere consists, like the stars themselves, partly of gases. This is what makes blogs addictive – that is, both pleasurable and destructive: They’re so easy to consume and so endlessly available. George Packer
If you’ve ever left a bag of clothes outside the Salvation Army or given to a local church drive, chances are that you’ve dressed an African. George Packer
The Princeton economist Alan Krueger has demonstrated that societies with higher levels of income inequality are societies with lower levels of social mobility. George Packer
To many book professionals, Amazon is a ruthless predator. The company claims to want a more literate world – and it came along when the book world was in distress, offering a vital new source of sales. George Packer
Surrendering to jargon is a sign of journalism’s dismal lack of self-confidence in the optimized age of content-management systems. George Packer
Abstract sympathy with the working class as an economic entity is easy, but the feeling can vanish on contact with actual members of the group, who often arrive with disturbing beliefs and powerful resentments – who might not sound or look like people urban progressives want to know. George Packer
As America has grown less economically equal, a citizen’s ability to move upward has fallen behind that of citizens in other Western democracies. We are no longer the country where anyone can become anything. George Packer
Amazon’s identity and goals are never clear and always fluid, which makes the company destabilizing and intimidating. George Packer
Afghanistan can’t police its borders, and its neighbors give sanctuary and assistance to insurgents. George Packer
I’ve read a lot of war writing, even World War I writing, the British war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves’s memoir ‘Goodbye to All That,’ and a civilian memoir, ‘Testament of Youth,’ by Vera Brittain. George Packer
No-one can say when the unwinding began, when the coil that held America together in its secure and sometime shifting grip first gave way. George Packer
If giving money to a politician prejudiced my ability to think and write honestly, I wouldn’t do it. Fortunately, it doesn’t. George Packer
I don’t know if it’s a male thing, but I’ve always been interested in how people respond to the stresses and dangers of war, how they react under fire. George Packer
Everything seems set up for success in digital journalism – money, eyeballs, software, brands. George Packer
All over Africa, people are wearing what Americans once wore and no longer want. Visit the continent, and you’ll find faded remnants of secondhand clothing in the strangest of places. George Packer
It suddenly occurred to me that the hottest tech startups are solving all the problems of being 20 years old, with cash on hand, because that’s who thinks them up. George Packer
Everyone finds justification for his or her views in logic and analysis, but a personal philosophy often emerges from some archaic part of the mind, an early idea of how the world should be. George Packer
I don’t think they need to be nice to reporters, but the White House seems to imagine that releasing information is like a tap that can be turned on and off at their whim. George Packer
It seems in America you are stuck with the position you adopted, even when events change, in order to claim absolute consistency. That can’t be good. George Packer
If the presidential nominating process were an international sports competition, one would assume that top officials of both parties were taking envelopes of cash from town chairs in Durham and precinct captains in Waterloo. George Packer
The Iraq war was always a long shot. But it was made immeasurably longer by its principal architects in Washington, including Douglas Feith, who ignored expert advice, reserved most of their effort for fighting each other in ideological battles, and regarded the Iraqi people as an afterthought. George Packer
The next great technology revolution might be around the corner, but it won’t automatically improve most people’s lives. That will depend on politics, which is indeed ugly but also inescapable. George Packer
The Senate was an odd compromise between the founders and the early leaders of the republic who wanted a single house which was based on popular sovereignty representing the people and those founders who wanted two houses, the upper house, the Senate, being the more aristocratic. George Packer
Putin stands for the opposite of a universal ideology; he has become an arch-nationalist of a pre-Cold War type, making mystic appeals to motherland and religion. George Packer
The hollowing out of the heartland was good for Walmart’s bottom line: its slogan might have been an amoral maxim attributed to Lenin – ‘The worse, the better.’ George Packer
I am never going to be able to rest easy in having established a posthumous connection to my father. I’ll always be groping for what I can’t have. George Packer
We have at least learned that the offspring of presidents don’t necessarily make good politicians themselves. George Packer
I spend much too much time on the Web with e-mail and surfing and reading my key sites, and a whole day can go by, and you wonder, ‘What did I do today?’ George Packer
The base of the party, the middle-aged white working class, has suffered at least as much as any demographic group because of globalization, low-wage immigrant labor, and free trade. Trump sensed the rage that flared from this pain and made it the fuel of his campaign. George Packer
It might not be wise for a sometime political journalist to admit this, but the 2016 campaign doesn’t seem like fun to me. George Packer
The idea of solving as huge and long-term a problem as inequality – which, for my money, is the biggest single problem we have here at home – just never gets serious concern from both sides. George Packer
The reformocons court right-wing censure simply by acknowledging that the middle class is under pressure and that government has a role to play beyond cutting taxes. George Packer
The libertarian worship of individual freedom, and contempt for social convention, comes easiest to people who have never really had to grow up. George Packer
Too many talented and supremely calculating politicians, including Nixon and Clinton, have destroyed their careers, or come close, by acting in ways that were obviously against their own interests. George Packer
Inspiration is an underexamined part of political life and presidential leadership. George Packer
‘Charlie Hebdo’ had been nondenominational in its satire, sticking its finger into the sensitivities of Jews and Christians, too – but only Muslims responded with threats and acts of terrorism. George Packer
Obama offers himself as a catalyst by which disenchanted Americans can overcome two decades of vicious partisanship, energize our democracy, and restore faith in government. George Packer
Politics demands certain skills honed by experience, just as journalism does, just as acting does. George Packer
In the extremity of war, character is revealed. George Packer
The best example of Obama’s success in foreign policy is Iran. George Packer
Jay-Z has kind of shown that you can get to the very top without waiting, without following rules. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. People will admire you more if you break the rules. George Packer
Trump has seized the Republican nomination by finding scapegoats for the economic hardships and disintegrating lives of working-class whites while giving these voters a reassuring but false promise of their restoration to the center of American life. George Packer
Obama is the splendid fruit of a meritocracy. George Packer
Today, we have our own concentrations of economic power. Instead of Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, the Union Pacific Railroad, and J. P. Morgan and Company, we have Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft. George Packer
The invisibility of work and workers in the digital age is as consequential as the rise of the assembly line and, later, the service economy. George Packer
The phrase ‘change the world’ is tossed around Silicon Valley conversations and business plans as freely as talk of ‘early-stage investing’ and ‘beta tests.’ George Packer
I need to protect myself from my own addictive impulse. George Packer
In a meritocracy, actors who act well get good roles. They don’t get to be journalists, too – a job that, in a meritocracy, should go to those who do journalism well. George Packer
Character is destiny, and politicians usually get the scandals they deserve, with a sense of inevitability about them. George Packer
What the Web has never figured out is how to pay for reporting, which, with the collapse of print newspapers, is in desperately short supply, and without which even the most prolific commenters will someday run out of things to say. George Packer
Gingrich was a far more volatile and aggressive individual than Boehner, but the institutional norms of self-restraint, and perhaps even self-interest, have broken down under the pressure of an increasingly abnormal Republican Party. George Packer
Oprah is just this goddess presiding over so much of American life, and her story is really interesting – the way she made herself, and the ruthlessness it took, and also the fantasizing that it took. George Packer
The information age has made Thiel rich, but it has also been a disappointment to him. It hasn’t created enough jobs, and it hasn’t produced revolutionary improvements in manufacturing and productivity. The creation of virtual worlds turns out to be no substitute for advances in the physical world. George Packer