Top 56 Demagoguery Quotes & Sayings

Trump's anti-China trade demagoguery may work in firing up his base, but it does a disservice to the truth.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Foreign policy - dealing as it does with the most charged political subjects of all, the safety and dignity of the nation - will always be political terrain particularly vulnerable to distortion and demagoguery.

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.'

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.

It's a lovely thing to see intelligent argument, unbending principle and policy go up against demagoguery, nativism and vulgar name-calling.

Populism, literally, means speaking for 'the people.' In practice it means demagoguery.

The biggest problem is that Facebook and Google are these giant feedback loops that give people what they want to hear. And when you use them in a world where your biases are being constantly confirmed, you become susceptible to fake news, propaganda, demagoguery.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Where you don't have people who have strong intellectual capacity, you get demagoguery.

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

The national debate on Social Security has been cheapened by demagoguery on all sides.

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. You know, when I look at an Ann Coulter or I look at a Rush or I look at a Sean Hannity, I think to myself, 'What kind of self-image do you have?'

Demagoguery beats data in making public policy.

If you've heard Hillary Clinton's recent remarks on Ritalin and other drug use on children, you'll find the usual nauseating demagoguery. She appears to be urging Ritalin caution; but, if you listen carefully, she's calling it a miracle drug: "A Godsend for emotional and behavioral problems, for both children and their parents." She insists her efforts are not an attack on the medical treatment of children's emotional well-being because the drugs are very, very "useful."

When a teacher of the future comes to point out to the youth of America how the highest rewards of intellect and devotion can be gained, he may say to them, not by subtlety and intrigue; not by wire pulling and demagoguery; not by the arts of popularity; not by skill and shiftiness in following expediency; but by being firm in devotion to the principles of manhood and the application of morals and the courage of righteousness in the public life of our country; by being a man without guile and without fear, without selfishness, and with devotion to duty, devotion to his country.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

If a novelist had concocted a villain like Trump - a larger-than-life, over-the-top avatar of narcissism, mendacity, ignorance, prejudice, boorishness, demagoguery, and tyrannical impulses, she or he would likely be accused of extreme contrivance and implausibility.

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.

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

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.

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.

Maybe Pope Francis will say something on his visit to the US, maybe he'll rebuke Donald Trump and anti-immigrant racism and demagoguery beautifully, in a way that illuminates hearts and makes people begin to turn away. That would be miracle enough for me.

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.

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.

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.

Demagoguery is not unknown in American history.

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.

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.

In a culture fueled by burnout, a culture that has run itself down, our national resilience becomes compromised. And when our collective immune system is weakened, we become more susceptible to viruses that are part of every culture because they're part of human nature - fear-mongering, scapegoating, conspiracy theories, and demagoguery.

The problem, gentlemen, is that Obama is right: The promise of upward mobility is dying in America, and no amount of political demagoguery will fix it.

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?"

I have never met anyone who did not support our troops. Sometimes, however, we hear accusations that someone or some group does not support the men and women serving in our Armed Forces. But this is pure demagoguery, and it is intellectually dishonest.

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.

There is a line in which populism can cross over into demagoguery. Demagoguery is the crossover where populism becomes a bad thing, and people make things up, and they assign responsibilities that aren't fair and justified, and scapegoat communities. And then it becomes a very bad thing.

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.

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.

We have demagogues on all sides of the political spectrum. It's not helpful. It's destructive. It's harmful. So, I don't like demagoguery whether it comes from the left, it comes from the right.

While Obama, the olive-branch poseur, has called for a restoration of 'civility' in Washington and liberal elites whine and whinny about the need for 'no labels,' class-warfare demagoguery has metastasized unchecked.