Every person has only so much attention to give, and politics and government takes up only a fraction of what it did 25 years ago.

Teeter, a prominent American pollster, is pointing to a structural shift in civic attention: individuals have finite “attention budgets,” and modern life (expanded media choices, entertainment, work pressures, and information overload) competes with public affairs. The claim implies that politics no longer commands the same share of everyday consciousness it once did, which helps explain lower political knowledge, weaker party attachment, and the growing importance of simplified messages, branding, and emotionally salient issues. For campaigns and governing, the quote underscores that persuasion and accountability operate in a more distracted environment—where reaching citizens requires repetition, clarity, and strategic timing rather than assuming sustained public focus.