Demagoguery Quotes

• The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Cynical, Doctrine

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Notes On Democracy”, p.76, Knopf

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• Reason and truth have rarely prevailed against demagoguery when the audience is too ignorant to tell the difference.

  Charley Reese

  Differences, Ignorant, Reason

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• Exploiting people's emotions of fear, envy and anxiety is not hope, it's not change, it's partisanship. We don't need partisanship. We don't need demagoguery, we need solutions.

  Paul Ryan

  People, Envy, Anxiety

  "Paul Ryan: No Leadership From WH; Dramatically Inaccurate Speech". www.realclearpolitics.com. April 13, 2011.

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• The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so they believe they are clever as he.

  Karl Kraus

  Funny, Clever, Stupid

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• Demagoguery enters at the moment when, for want of a common denominator, the principle of equality degenerates into the principle of identity.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Atheism, Identity, Principles

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• If you look at the history of demagoguery and fascism, it always happens when there are two things. It requires a gentle populace to allow it to happen, whether through laziness, ignorance or ineptitude, but it also requires a very angry, dissatisfied section of the populace who want egregiously simple answers to very complicated problems.

  Moby

  Ignorance, Simple, Two

  Source: thequietus.com

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• American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.

  Henry A. Wallace

  Information, Type, Coalitions

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• Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of "emergency". It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And "emergency" became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains.

  Herbert Hoover

  Country, Horse, Men

  Herbert Hoover (1952). “Memoirs: The great depression, 1929-1941”

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• It is when it is contended that "in a democracy right is what the majority makes it to be" that democracy degenerates into demagoguery.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Democracy, Majority, Degenerates

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek (p. 94), 1960.

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• [Y]ou possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, crossgrained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing.

  Aristophanes

  Voice, Language, Attributes

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• When the goal of political action is no longer the defense of liberty, no word other than demagoguery can describe the despicable nature of politics.

  Ron Paul

  Goal, Political, Liberty

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• Intellectual freedom is essential -- freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices. Such freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship.

  Andrei Sakharov

  Freedom, Hypocrite, Hands

  Andrei D. Sakharov (1968). “Progress, coexistence, and intellectual freedom”

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• Selfishness and demagoguery take advantage of liberty. The selfish hand constantly seeks to control government, and every increase of governmental power, even to meet just needs, furnishes opportunity for abuse and stimulates the effort to bend it to improper uses.

  Charles Evans Hughes

  Selfish, Opportunity, Government

  Charles Evans Hughes (1910). “Conditions of Progress in Democratic Government”

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• America has been a land of dreams. A land where the aspirations of people from countries cluttered with rich, cumbersome, aristocratic, ideological pasts can reach for what once seemed unattainable. Here they have tried to make dreams come true. Yet now... we are threatened by a new and particularly American menace. It is not the menace of class war, of ideology, of poverty, of disease, of illiteracy, or demagoguery, or of tyranny, though these now plague most of the world. It is the menace of unreality.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  Dream, Country, War

  Daniel J. Boorstin (1962). “The Image or What Happened to the American Dream”

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• Demagoguery beats data in making public policy.

  Dick Armey

  Data, Beats, Policy

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• I think my main concern is because I worry about demagoguery. It`s real. You see the people standing up there and applauding.

  Bernie Sanders

  Real, Thinking, People

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• For too long, too many people dependent on Social Security have been cruelly frightened by individuals seeking political gain through demagoguery and outright falsehood, and this must stop.

  Ronald Reagan

  Long, People, Political

  Reagan, Ronald (1982). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1981”, p.1157, Best Books on

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• Without the truth of the people, politics degenerates into mere spectacle and democracy declines, leaving demagoguery and cynicism to fill the void.

  Jerry Brown

  People, Leaving, Democracy

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• Demagoguery sells. And therefore, radio stations will put it on. But that doesn't mean that you can't do something else and also make it sell.

  Al Franken

  Mean, Radio, Stations

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• The Shah regarded politics as the province of demagoguery, an art in which only charlatans could excel. He had no time for what he saw as the tedious process of achieving consensus through debate and discussion and tried to justify his solitary exercise of power by insisting it was what Iran needed to catch up with lost time. He believed he was more patriotic than anyone else and needed no advice on how best to promote and protect the highest interests of the nation.

  Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

  Art, Patriotic, Exercise

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• Any politician who starts shouting election-year demagoguery about the rich and the poor should be asked, "What about the other 90 percent of the people?"

  Thomas Sowell

  Years, People, Liberty

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• Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of EMERGENCY.

  Herbert Hoover

  Horse, Tyrants, Emergencies

  Herbert Hoover (1952). “Memoirs: The great depression, 1929-1941”

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• We may repeat the awful revolutionary history of the 20th century because of the vulnerability of social movements to demagoguery.

  Todd Gitlin

  Movement, May, Awful

  "How to be radical?". The OpenDemocracy Interview, www.opendemocracy.net. April 5, 2011.

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• More important than anything else is for Americans to wise up to class warfare demagoguery and reject the politics of envy.

  Walter E. Williams

  Wise, Class, Envy

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• We're living through an age of irrationality and religious "fervor" I would call it religious idiocy. It's exhausting to year after year be on the receiving end of this demagoguery.

  Dan Savage

  Religious, Years, Age

  Source: www.rollingstone.com

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