66 Demagoguery Quotes
Following is our list of demagoguery quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about .
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Famous Demagoguery Quotes
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
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. — H. L. Mencken
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
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
Reason and truth have rarely prevailed against demagoguery when the audience is too ignorant to tell the difference. — Charley Reese
The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so they believe they are clever as he. — Sayings
A democracy is no more than an aristocracy of orators. The people are so readily moved by demagogues that control must be exercised by the government over speech and press. — Thomas Hobbes
ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography. — Ambrose Bierce
A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. — Joseph Pulitzer
Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them. — Noam Chomsky
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. — H. L. Mencken
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
The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots. — Elbridge Gerry
Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants. — Alexander Hamilton
Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor. — William Shakespeare
Demagogue Quotes
We've got a great percentage of our population that, to our great shame, either cannot or, equally unfortunate, will not read. And that portion of our public is growing. Those people are suckers for the demagogue. — Walter Cronkite
Nor is the guilt entirely with the warmongers, plutocrats and demagogues. If people permit exploitation and regimentation in any name, they deserve their slavery. A tyrant does not make his tyranny possible. It is made by the people and not otherwise. — Jack Parsons
Athens' biggest worry was the sheer recklessness of its own democratic government. A simple majority of the citizenry, urged on and incensed by clever demagogues, might capriciously send out military forces in unnecessary and exhausting adventures. — Thucydides
You have delivered up our holy German Fatherland to one of the greatest demagogues of all time. I solemnly prophesy that this accursed man will cast our Reich into the abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery. Future generations will damn you in your grave for what you have done. — Ian Kershaw
Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds expression in the anonymity of the Corporate State. It purports to cherish democracy, patriotism, and the Constitution while manipulating internal levers. — Chris Hedges
[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
There is a limit to the success of conservative populism and the exploitation of "little guy" or "silent majority" rhetoric, and it is very often reached because of the emaciated, corrupted personalities of the demagogues themselves. — Christopher Hitchens
Freedom of press and freedom of speech: What a blessing for a country while in the hands of honest, patriotic men; what a curse if in the hands of designing demagogues. — William J. H. Boetcker
From the right, you get demagogues shouting about brown-skinned anchor babies and clamoring to deport the undocumented. From the left, you get advocacy for the oppressed but otherwise, when it comes to national civic identity, mainly silence. — Eric Liu
We cannot be wise while in the grip of a deep fear. ... This is why demagogues, when seeking our support, will first cause us to fear and hate, knowing when we are in the grip of a great fear, we will abandon common sense and wisdom, we will forsake the hard-won lessons of time and experience. — Philip Gulley
People Writing About Demagoguery
| Name | Quotes | Likes |
|---|---|---|
 H. L. Mencken |
913 | 7279 |
.jpg) Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
360 | 4347 |
 Ron Paul |
330 | 1474 |
 Friedrich August von Hayek |
231 | 2204 |
 Charley Reese |
44 | 406 |
 Sayings |
6895 | 535 |
More Demagoguery Quotes
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
Class warfare or soaking the so-called rich may make for good populist demagoguery and serve the political ends of the governing masterminds, but it does nothing to solve the grave realities of the federal government's insatiable appetite for spending and its inability to reform itself. — Mark Levin
The United Nations is useless...and also harmful. It is a land that flowers demagoguery with a bunch of newborn countries, devoid of any tradition. — Antonio de Oliveira Salazar
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
Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries. — Zbigniew Brzezinski
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
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
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
Without the truth of the people, politics degenerates into mere spectacle and democracy declines, leaving demagoguery and cynicism to fill the void. — Jerry Brown
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
We may repeat the awful revolutionary history of the 20th century because of the vulnerability of social movements to demagoguery. — Todd Gitlin
Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of EMERGENCY. — Herbert Hoover
Primitive, simplistic anti-Communism is all too often used as a common denominator for diverse efforts to perpetuate one's own power in a democratic system, convert opinions into dogma, and kill off all opposition, even silent. — Eugen Kogon
If Trump is elected president... I just don't know what America looks like four years after his election, in terms of the kind of bigotry that will be erupting, in terms of the kind of divisiveness that we will see, the kind of demagoguery that we will see. — Bernie Sanders
Demagoguery beats data in making public policy. — Dick Armey
More important than anything else is for Americans to wise up to class warfare demagoguery and reject the politics of envy. — Walter E. Williams
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
The national debate on Social Security has been cheapened by demagoguery on all sides. — Bill Delahunt
I've said many times - I told William Buckley, I said, "You warped my mind and I never recovered from it." That was a principled, lawful understanding of the role of government, the Constitution. It was not based on racism, on demagoguery, but on strong principles that - which, consistent with the American heritage and our strength for the future. — Jeff Sessions
I find it deeply disturbing that someone wanting to be president of the United States would talk the way Donald Trump talks, use the rhetoric, the demagoguery, the bigotry and the bluster and the bullying that he has demonstrated. — Hillary Clinton
Many excellent artists working today unfortunately lack the indispensable gifts necessary for demagoguery and self-promotion, while the bad ones are full of passionate intensity. — Roman Genn
Slumism is the pent-up anger of people living on the outside of affluence. Slumism is decay of structure and deterioration of the human spirit. Slumism is a virus which spreads through the body politic. As other "isms," it breeds disorder and demagoguery and hate. — Hubert H. Humphrey
When people like Glenn Beck throw around the word Nazi without taking that kind of care, they are engaging in demagoguery. I am doing it with a concrete footnoted historical context. — Naomi Wolf
During the election, I traveled all across the country. I like my country and the French. I love talking with them and convincing them. It is my job each day to fight for my compatriots. But also to not succumb to demagoguery and lies or agree to favors. — Emmanuel Macron
While there were many factors in the 2016 election, from false news to voter suppression and Russian hacking, the question is why so many people responded to Donald Trump's demagoguery. — Riane Eisler
I bet we`ll see a lot of demagoguery [in Donald Trump speech] about the 10,000 Syrians that [Barack] Obama has allowed to be resettled here. — Michelle Goldberg
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
Slumism is the pent-up anger of people living on the outside of affluence. Slumism is decay of structure and deterioration of the human spirit. Slumism is a virus which spreads through the body politic. As other isms, it breeds disorder and demagoguery and hate. — Hubert Humphrey
We lack a political culture, a culture of compromise. We in Poland, as well as the Hungarians, have never learned this sort of thing. Although there is a strong desire for freedom in the countries of Eastern Europe, there is no democratic tradition, so that the risk of anarchy and chaos continues to exist. Demagoguery and populism are rampant. We are the illegitimate children, the bastards of communism. It shaped our mentality. — Adam Michnik
I think the Congress will do the right thing. I think that they've - you know, they got into certain arguments and they start worrying about assessing blame, and there is a little demagoguery, but in the end, something this important, they'll do the right thing. So this really is an economic Pearl Harbor. That sounds melodramatic, but I've never used that phrase before. And this really is one. — Warren Buffett
You all remember how many years ago, we were younger, it was uppity women who are trying to take our jobs as men. It was those gay people who wanted to make everybody homosexual in our school system. It was Blacks wanted to take white jobs. That's what demagoguery is about. It is to obfuscate the real problems facing our society and find somebody you can blame and rally the American people. — Bernie Sanders
Many of the wonderful achievements of the 20th century were the result of the pursuit of profits. Unfortunately, demagoguery has led to profits becoming a dirty word. Nonprofit is seen as more righteous, particularly when people pompously stand before us and declare, 'We're a nonprofit organization.' — Walter E. Williams
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
In Conclusion
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