While the United States has often taken the wrong path, it has rarely failed to demonstrate - at least in the long run - the courage to reverse its steps.
It's hard to overstate the lasting harm Mr. Tillerson's tenure will do to America's diplomacy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses concern about the negative impact of Rex Tillerson's time as Secretary of State on the United States' diplomatic relationships.
Antony Blinken highlights the detrimental effects of Rex Tillerson's tenure as Secretary of State, suggesting that his actions and policies may have lasting repercussions on America's ability to engage effectively in diplomacy. This underscores the critical role that leadership in foreign affairs plays in shaping international relations and the importance of continuity and trust in diplomatic efforts.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of foreign policy, a speaker may reference this quote to illustrate how leadership decisions can have long-term consequences.
More from Antony Blinken
All quotes βWhen it comes to climate change, I think that success at home is directly tied to our ability to lead effectively abroad.
Some friends of Israel believe that the Palestinians will never, in their hearts, accept a Jewish state in Palestine. Yet Germans and French, Chinese and Japanese, Mexicans and Americans have overcome their once insurmountable differences. Palestinians and Jews also have much to gain from peaceful coexistence.
By virtually every metric, the liberal international order has made the world healthier, wealthier, wiser, more secure and more tolerant than it has ever been.
I don't think anyone in the 1990s, the late '90s, anticipated that the Putin they knew then would become the Putin we know now.
My father's father fled a pogrom in Russia in the early 20th century and was welcomed to the United States. So was my stepmother, who escaped as a young girl from Communist Hungary in 1950.
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The working classes in every country only learn to fight in the course of their struggles...Social democracy...is only the advance guard of the proletariat, a small piece of the total working masses; blood from their blood, and flesh from their flesh. Social democracy seeks and finds the ways, and particular slogans, of the workers' struggle only in the course of the development of this struggle, and gains directions for the way forward through this struggle alone.
I say further that for this great legislative body to ignore the Constitution and the fundamental concepts of our governmental system is to act in a manner which could ultimately destroy the freedom of all American citizens, including the freedoms of the very persons whose feelings and whose liberties are the major subject of this legislation.
Social democracy does not represent an ideal future; it does not even represent the ideal past.
None of this is fair to you. And should it continue, it will make it more difficult to keep attracting the kind of driven, patriotic, idealist Americans to public service that our citizens deserved and that our system of self-government demands.
Any time, every time, you can damn the Prime Minister and so long as it is not a lie and a criminal lie, nothing happens to you. You can say a lot of things. You can write books about him, damning him. So long as it is not a libel, go ahead.
Governments are supposed to lie to their citizens.