Political Appeasement Quotes

The Framers of the Constitution wisely understood that constitutional principles must not be sacrificed on the altar of political appeasement.

The problem with State of the Union speeches is that they are, by their nature and design, alphabet soup. It's hard to know what a president really cares about when they run down a laundry list and check every issue box under the sun for fear they will offend some constituency if they don't.

'A Talk to Teachers' is emblematic of Baldwin's proclivity for candor over political appeasement and, like much of his work, focusses on history and the American consciousness.

There are some who, for varying reasons, would appease Red China. They are blind to history's clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance where this end has justified that means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace. Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative.

And political parties, overanxious for vote catching, become tolerant to intolerant groups.

I think McCarthy was a menace... because he corrupted the ethics of American conservatives, and that corruption leads to the situation we have now. It gave the conservatives the habit of appeasing the forces of the hysterical right... and appeasing them knowingly, expediently. I think that was the original sin of the conservative movement, and we [conservatives] are all suffering from it.

Engaging in a sycophantic way with any politician in the short term is tempting. It offers the lure of access and the promise of influence. But ultimately, it can lead to misreading the environment, giving too much of an ear to the politician's circle, and confining your audience to partisans.

But the weakness comes from these Westernised co-opted Muslim leaders who just want to look good in the eyes of the West and Western media.

The “cant” of the politician, like the cant of the “religious” man, is also protean in its guise, but its chief method is to explain away words. The politician can always show you that he didn’t mean what he says, but something rather different from what he says. Political cant consists in pretending to agreement with hearers, whoever they may be. This cant is part of the stock-in-trade of every politician, be he Tory, Whig, or Radical, and it is by its means that he tries to haul in stray votes.

So what we have is an American foreign policy that is inextricably linked to domestic matters. It is very dangerous for a politician who desires nothing more than to stay in office to address the mindset that any change in policy is appeasement. And Americans will accept that for a certain amount of time.

It is not to be expected of men who live for the sole purpose of enjoying official station, that they shall ever be manly, noble or independent. They slavishly cower before every storm that threatens their opinions with popular condemnation, and make haste to trim their sails to catch the passing breeze of public favor.

My dear Fuhrer: Everyone in England is profoundly moved by the bloodless solution to the Czechoslovakian problem. People not so much concerned with territorial readjustment as with dread of another war with its accompanying bloodbath. Frederick the Great was a great popular figure. I salute your Excellency’s star which rises higher and higher.

We've become the party that wants to appease everyone and no one. And I think the only way that the Democrats become viable again is if we have people who have moral clarity and courage to say what they need to say and fight for what they need to fight for.

Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular -- not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people.