Jill Lepore Quotes

Roosevelt never leads; he always follows. He acts, but he acts only when he thinks the crowd is behind him …. Upon all the great issues he has championed, the country was prepared before he entered the arena.

If we had a populist president who didn't alienate so many persuadable voters, who took full advantage of a strong economy, and who had the political cunning displayed by Modi or Benjamin Netanyahu or Viktor Orban, the liberal belief in a hidden left-of-center mandate might be exposed as a fond delusion.

You know, when George Bush talks about freedom not being America's gift to world but God's gift to all humankind, it smells like market testing to me.

Democracy allows rhetoric, false empathy and emotion to pummel rational thinking - so it's no wonder so many politicians thrive in it.

You see in times of crisis that extremist forces, populist forces, have a better ground to oversimplify things and to manipulate feelings. Feelings of fear.

I have criticisms of Ronald Reagan, but he lives in another universe from the kind of political theater that is represented by people, like Sarah Palin, who aren't really public servants.

Each side had its uninformed fanatics. And each side had political leaders who fanned the flames with their rhetoric.

War is no longer made by simply analyzed economic forces if it ever was. War is made or planned now by individual men, demagogues and dictators who play on the patriotism of their people to mislead them into a belief in the great fallacy of war when all their vaunted reforms have failed to satisfy the people they misrule.

Democratic candidates who run from President Obama in red states where he is unpopular are making a big mistake. Their holding Obama at arm's length deprives voters of a clear choice at the ballot box.

Demagoguery is not unknown in American history.

In true demagogic fashion, Trump bypassed the head and spoke directly to the gut, to the biles and bubbling acids of raw emotion.

I think Trump uses social media as a way to get to people's lowest common denominator. He uses it to incite fear. He talks about simplistic ideas.

Politicians used to be leaders. Now they follow voters, desperate for a tick in a box.

There's always that tension between policy and personality in politics, and as voters, we have that, too: we all vote on issues, but we also vote on whether we like the people who are put forward.

Demagogues are so easy to identify. They gesture a lot and speak with pulpit rhythms, using words that ring of religious fervour and god-fearing sincerity. Sincerity with nothing behind it takes so much practice. The practice can always be detected. Repetition. Great attempts to keep your attention on words.

Donald Trump is an especially depressing phenomena because he is so debased and debasing and millions and millions of people want him to be president. We're seeing how at least whole swathes of white America are becoming your worst nightmare of eternal Zombie High School. Something like a perfect mix of Groundhog Day and The Moronic Inferno. How can it be that a guy who looks like a bloated cadaver pulled from the Gowanus canal, with some rouge on his cheeks and a sticky Something About Mary wig, is actually applauded by his followers for making fun of how other people look?

Playing to resentment and using a lot of, you know, grand abstract phrases like make America great again is - it just doesn't have the answer. It's simply a way to whip up emotion and then leave people more bitter than you found them.

Sometimes you have positional authority, and that is very hopeful. But the reality of it is the nation responds to moral authority, when we believe that our president has the entire nation's best interests at heart.

I'm vulgar, I'm a populist. But isn't that what the mayor should be?

The voters of Hawaii have said loud and clear that it's not money that wins elections.

As with other issues—taxes, climate, court-packing—the Biden administration is confusing the nation’s rejection of Donald Trump with an endorsement of a progressive agenda. But if voters wanted far-left policies, the Democratic House majority wouldn’t be so puny, the Senate wouldn’t be evenly split, and Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders would be president.

We have to acknowledge that Donald Trump knows our country better than we do. I think he figured out that anger and frankly fear were way more powerful than appealing to people’s better angels. That anger and fear were going to work in this election, whether you’re afraid of immigrants or afraid of people who are trans, he figured that out. And I think we all thought everyone’s better angels would prevail. Turns out the better angels went on vacation when Donald Trump came down the escalator and they haven’t returned.

Every President reconstructs the Presidency to meet his own psychological needs.

Stevenson had noble ideas--as did the young Franklin for that matter. But Stevenson felt that the way to implement them was to present himself as a thoughtful idealist and wait for the world to flock to him. He considered it below him, or wrong, to scramble out among the people and ask them what they wanted. Roosevelt grappled voters to him. Stevenson shied off from them. Some thought him too pure to desire power, though he showed ambition when it mattered.

Hitler understood the demagogues' essential principle to teach or persuade is far more difficult than to stir emotion.