Demogoguery Quotes

“This American government,- what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“To allow oneself to be shamed is to admit that you are subject to and ruled by society’s arbiters of what is acceptable. Demagogues, as a rule, insist that they will not be so ruled; that is part of their democratic appeal. Shame is a constraint, and so is an affront to freedom. Shame condemns from a moral high ground, and so is an affront to equality. The demagogue follows these impoverished understandings of freedom and equality and concludes that conventions and laws are for suckers. Part of his pernicious influence is to persuade even his opponents that moral and constitutional scruples are forms of weakness.

The demagogue’s own weakness lies in the fact that most people, even most of his supporters, tend to live by the conventions that he disdains. He needs their support and craves their adoration, making him dependent on people he holds in contempt”
― Bryan Garsten