Dorothy Thompson Quotes

No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument — the Incorporated National Will. ... When our dictator turns up, you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American

Naturally the common people don't want war ... but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

Lincoln was right about not fooling all the people all of the time. But the Republicans haven't given up trying.

Demagoguery is not unknown in American history.

If you've lived in a dictatorship for thirty years, you're used to people lying to you.

We teach them to take their patriotism at second-hand; to shout with the largest crowd without examining into the right or wrong of the matter -- exactly as boys under monarchies are taught and have always been taught. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, and so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and out of place -- the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else's keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan.

Even Stalin proclaimed his love for democracy. We do not learn about the nature of systems of power by listening to their rhetoric.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all the people some of the time, which is just long enough to be president of the United States.

No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?

Model communes are the ones where the leaders lie the best and the biggest.

Sometimes I think that a parody of democracy could be more dangerous than a blatant dictatorship, because that gives people an opportunity to avoid doing anything about it.

What George W. Bush learned in his pre-presidential years - and what he omits in his new memoirs - was not how to lead a nation, but how, with sufficient toughness, to cheat the democratic system to get elected.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

Cuba wants to get rid of a dictator, and baseball needs a dictator.

The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap.

The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.

You know those Navy SEALs, they weren't Democrats and Republicans. They were just doing what was best for America. Wouldn't that be a great country if all of you Americans were just like that? You followed orders, you marched in step and you followed my agenda.

Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.

When applied to politics and taken to its extreme, kitsch is the mask of death. Fascism was all aesthetics. There was no core principle to it. There was no truth to it.

Frankly, I wouldn't put anything past him [Nixon] and those damn technocrats. You can't begin to compete with the professional Nixonites when it comes to deception.... If Nixon told them to nationalize the railroads, they'd have nationalized the railroads. If he'd told them to exterminate the Jews, they'd have exterminated the Jews.

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

Tyrants of our day are the most dangerous preachers of liberty.

You can't be a dictator any more; anyone who tries to play the part of God will stumble.

Demagogues are the mob's lackeys.

Faith in the Fuhrer is enveloped, it could almost be said, in a mysterious, unfathomable mysticism.