Mary Katharine Ham Quotes & Sayings

Research at NYU and elsewhere is underscoring just how blind the "us-vs-them" mind-set can make people when they try to process new political information. Once this partisanship mentality kicks in, the brain almost automatically pre-filters facts - even noncontroversial ones - that offend our political sensibilities. — Mary Katharine Ham

I'm anti-making new laws. I feel like assault is already against the law. — Mary Katharine Ham

Candidates must constantly signal their social acceptability to a diverse group of consumers. Neither silence nor a lack of an opinion is an acceptable answer on any subject. And, in order to reduce the chances of losing their livelihood for transgressing, they default to shallow, safe, rehearsed, and socially approved messages. — Mary Katharine Ham

Some folks ask me what the transition was like from NASCAR reporter to political reporter. It's easy. In one, you try to explain to your readers the significance of grown-ups getting paid exorbitant amounts of money to go around in circles indefinitely, always turning left. In the other, you get to interview racecar drivers. — Mary Katharine Ham

If you start having a society where people are policing their own thoughts, now we're back in Salem, Massachusetts, where literally, they didn't do anything for fun, and then that pressure built up and they all went nuts. — Mary Katharine Ham

I'm just worried about the unintended consequences of the laws. — Mary Katharine Ham

According to the federal government's own figures, the top 1 percent of U.S. wage earners were responsible for 68 percent of all federal tax receipts in 2011. Not just federal income tax, mind you, all federal taxes. — Mary Katharine Ham

If we cannot live and work alongside people with whom we deeply disagree, we are finished as a liberal society. — Mary Katharine Ham

To not make fun of something is, we believe, itself a form of bullying. — Mary Katharine Ham