David Mitchell Quotes

If President [Barack] Obama - President [Donald] Trump shows up with a, you know, cleaver and just says, I can get rid of all these regulations, I can get rid of ObamaCare, no problem at all, then that would be a mistake.

Armies, though always the supporters and tools of absolute power for the time being, are always the destroyers of it too; by frequently changing the hands in which they think proper to lodge it.

Hillary Clinton called President Assad a "reformer". She called Assad a "different kind of leader". There's now 400,000 now dead... think about that.

History reminds us that dictators and despots arise during times of severe economic crisis.

By the late 1970s, repression and economic chaos were causing increasing unrest throughout Latin America. Army strongmen were forced to cede power in Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

I'm very disappointed by the mature-democracy countries. I was ousted by a coup d'etat.

In two years, there were 22 military coups d'etat, essentially in Africa and the third world. The coup d'etat of Algiers, in 1965, is what opened the path.

Some leaders think time will solve the problem. Their hope is that Assad's regime will ultimately fall from the heavy toll of the horrors it has spawned. From past experience with such regimes, this scenario is unlikely to happen.

On Aug. 19, 1953, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran became the first victim of a C.I.A. coup. Ten months later, on June 27, 1954, President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala became the second.

After installing friendly leaders in Iran and Guatemala, the United States lost interest in promoting democracy in either country.

Foreign policy can be the undoing of absolute rulers, tempted to foreign adventure in order to compensate for failure at home or spurred on by domestic adulation.

Democratization is not necessarily the best way to fight Islamic extremism, because the transition to democracy has been found to be an especially vulnerable period for states across the board.

The trouble with military rule is that every colonel or general is soon full of ambition. The navy takes over today and the army tomorrow.

Coups usually follow national humiliation.

The transition from authoritarianism to democracy is not as easy as it appears in position papers – it is a rambunctious affair.

A transition from party to personal government has preceded every failure of a republic.

I worry that a democratic transition in this period for a state like the U.a. E. would put, us in the throes of reactionary conservatism, probably for the next 30 or 40 years. I look at what is happening in Egypt and other places, and I wonder, do I need that kind of transition?

As Republics have risen and fallen, a transition from party to personal government has preceded every failure since the world began.

Because authoritarian regimes lack popular legitimacy, they often manipulate and deepen communal cleavages in order to divide potential opponents and generate support among favored groups. So when democratization occurs, the pent up distrust and animosity often explode.

Never during the independent life of Mexico has a group of persons who have once obtained power been superseded by election, but only by dint of an armed rebellion. That is a constant law of our history.

Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel!

The most blood-boltered coup may result merely in a substitution of interchangeable military cliques.

… most republics through history have eventually collapsed, degenerated into tyranny, or were overthrown.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the U.S. government, lead by Mr. Bush, planned and participated in a coup d'etat in Venezuela in April, 2002.

Honduras in 2009 and Paraguay in 2012 were low-hanging fruit, small countries with outsized oligarchies, where mild reformers were easily dispatched.