Mark Shields Quotes

Trump manipulates the fearful by promising that he will use his fraudulent deal-making prowess to protect and take care of his supporters.

Trump's "Make America Great Again" program trumpets a national identity built on scapegoating, self-pity and grandiosity, and the promise of a strongman.

Everyone wants to demagogue everyone else. That may be good politics, but it's awful policy.

… becoming a very dangerous proposition…. an out and out demagogue

Unfortunately in this country we now have a demagogue ... one that is reckless with the truth.

Demagogues are the mob's lackeys.

There is a hate layer of opinion and emotion in America. There will be other McCarthys to come who will be hailed as its heroes.

America is always a good target for a populist. In many countries, particularly authoritative systems, if you want to get an extra bonus, you bash the Americans.

You never discount a demagogue.

Demagoguery is not unknown in American history.

In place of presidential addresses, stump speeches, or town halls, we have Trump's demagogic mass rallies. In place of the usual jousting between the administration and the press, we have a president who fantasizes on Twitter about physically assaulting CNN.

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.

We've had characters like Trump in American politics forever, characters who trade on xenophobia.

'Make America great again,' is not that different from Putin's nostalgia for the Soviet Union or tsarist Russia.

Donald Trump appeals to the worst fears of Americans at a time we need unity, not division. Republicans are deeply divided by a man who is perilously close to gaining the most powerful position in the world, and many rightly see him as a real threat to our Republic.

American populist politics has a long tradition, from Andrew Jackson to Huey Long to Joseph McCarthy. But the politician Trump is most like could be George Wallace.

When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of 'terrorism' and 'extremism.' Be alive to the fatal notions of 'exception' and 'emergency.' Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.

Paralysis in decision-making breeds frustration and contempt from the electorate, and provides the perfect seedbed for demagogues who fill the vacuum with populist simplicities, hatred of opposition and lies.

The two candidates have very different visions of America. Donald Trump's is very dark: Things are not going well. There are dark days ahead unless you make a change, and he's the one to fix it.

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

There's never been an era absent of demagogues.

What the Democrats have done is tell the poor and the middle class that the Democrats are looking out for 'em. Democrats are gonna get even with those rich people. They're gonna get there, and they're gonna have theirs taken away. They're gonna lose theirs, and you're supposed to feel good about that. You, who are poor or middle class, are supposed to feel happy, not because you have any more than you had. You're supposed to be happy because the rich that you hate have finally been screwed like you think you were screwed.

The conservatives nearly always tolerate the demagogue while he is destroying liberals.

Trump provides a more direct and arrogant persona that produces the ugliness of a society ruled entirely by finance capital and savage market values, one that prides itself on the denigration of others as well as of justice, passion, and equality.

The Trump phenomenon has a lot of really good stuff in it, the anti-elitism, the concern for America's economy in the Rust Belt, the desire to see better days for the country. That's all great stuff. Some of that stuff is Bernie Sanders stuff. The problem is that it's marbled through with xenophobia and misogyny and bigotry.