Gene Weingarten Quotes

What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation.

The appalling reality in American politics today is that, when ideology and money mix, truth is a mere inconvenience.

I've been dealing with politicians all my life. All my life. And I've always gotten them to do what I need them to do.

Politics is power, and communications is power,

The process of shaping opinion, attitudes, and perceptions was termed the 'engineering of consent' by one of the founders of the modern public relations industry, Edward Bernays.

Television has made dictatorship impossible but democracy unbearable.

Propaganda invariably serves the long-term interests of some elite.

Advertising men and politicians are dangerous if they are separated. Together they are diabolical.

There is a thin line between politics and theatricals.

Flattery was one of Kissinger's principal tools in winning over Nixon, and a tool he employed shamelessly.

I think people involved in politics make good actors. Acting and politics both involve fooling people. People like being fooled by actors. When you get right down to it, they probably like being fooled by politicians even more. A skillful actor will make you think, but a skillful politician will make you never have to think.

The press is like a big bass, you just stick a hook in their mouth and they'll take it.

Win and keep the confidence of your leader. Never refuse or quash schemes he puts forward: but ensure that they are put forward in the first instance privately to you. Always approve them, and after praise modify them insensibly causing the suggestions to come from him, until they are in accord with your own opinion. When you attain this point, hold him to it, keep a tight grip of his ideas, and push him forward as firmly as possible, but secretly so that no one but himself (and he not too clearly) is aware of your pressure.

Politics is a matter of communications.

Politics is the business of managing perceptions.

In a democracy, as a matter of course, every effort is made to seize upon and create publick opinion, which is, substantially, securing power.

You can't be a public affairs specialist if you're actually working on the public's affairs.

The press has, at present, a great influence over public questions; and by far the greater and more influential part of it is engaged on the side of the capitalist.

In the struggle for power, propaganda is an instrument to be used by those who want to secure or retain power just as much as it is by those wanting to displace them.

Propaganda as a mere tool is no more moral or immoral than a pump handle....the only effective weapon against propaganda on behalf of one policy seems to be propaganda on behalf of an alternative.

The primary purpose of the media is to mobilize support for the controlling interests.

In Russia, as well as everywhere else, the true and lasting power is that of public opinion, and of those who know how to influence it.

Power comes through public persuasion.

Politics is about the persuasion required to move people to judgment.

Those who tell us to be in touch with our own desires are often merely trying to make us believe that what we want is the thing that they are selling. […] We're used to that kind of persuasion, for political candidates as well as commercial products.