Applause, mingled with boos and hisses, is about all that the average voter is able or willing to contribute to public life.

Davis’s line is a sardonic diagnosis of mass democracy: most citizens, he suggests, participate in politics primarily as spectators rather than as co-creators. “Applause” and “boos and hisses” evoke a theater audience—reactive, emotional, and intermittent—implying that public life is often reduced to approval or outrage instead of sustained civic labor (organizing, deliberating, learning issues, holding officials accountable beyond elections). The phrase “able or willing” points to both structural limits (time, education, access) and personal choice (apathy, distraction). The quote’s sting lies in its warning that when voters contribute only noise, politics incentivizes performance and demagoguery over governance.