Dave Shaw

“The medium of the debate has also changed the nature of the debate. Advertisements for hair dryers, news about pop stars, stories about the bond market, notes from our friends, and far-right memes arrive in a constant stream on our telephones or computers, each one apparently carrying the same weight and importance. If, in the past, most political conversations took place in a legislative chamber, the columns of a newspaper, a television studio, or a bar, now they often take place online, in a virtual reality where readers and writers feel distant from one another and from the issues they describe, where everyone can be anonymous and no one needs to take responsibility for what they say.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“money, and wealth, like water, has to flow and circulate, as the number 8. Stagnating water loses its energy and encourages putrefaction, while flowing water, at the opposite, brings life; so should be money circulating in the economy and wealth in society.”
― Jean-Michel Paul, The Economics of Discontent: From Failing Elites to The Rise of Populism

“This new information world also provides a new set of tools and tactics that another generation of clercs can use to reach people who want simple language, powerful symbols, clear identities. There is no need, nowadays, to form a street movement in order to appeal to those of an authoritarian predisposition. You can construct one in an office”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“The jangling, dissonant sound of modern politics; the anger on cable television and the evening news; the fast pace of social media; the headlines that clash with one another when we scroll through them; the dullness, by contrast, of the bureaucracy and the courts; all of this”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism