Political Oratory Quotes
One of the puzzles of American Civil War history has been how the poor whites of the South (who provided most of the military manpower that fought and died in the Civil War) were persuaded to fight against a much stronger, more highly industrialized, and more affluent few, that had many more soldiers. One of the main reasons, though difficult for us to understand today, was that the Southern leadership actually persuaded the Southerners that men from the North were cowards and lacked the character, virtue or will to fight. The general “party line” of the South was that one Southern solder was worth more than 5 Northern Soldiers,
Many secondary sources quote Lloyd George but we have not yet found a primary reference for this quotation.
Nixon, in his second attempt to win the Presidency was told by a small group of Southern Republican politicians that his support was wavering in the South. They had already left the Democratic Party in reaction to the Passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They were concerned because in order to try and capture some of the more liberal anti-war Democrats, Nixon had been making speeches advocating the vigerous enforcement of of civil rights and improving the lot of the Negro. But Nixon could not afford to lose his political base inb the south. Hence the promise which did not keep very long after he was elected President. Nixon was not a strong civil rights President, but he was totally without principles and had no political idiology he would sacrifice any of his political capital for. So once he was elected, he didn't want to offend the centerists whose support he needed for his legislatrive program so he did pay lip service to the prinicples of equality when he himself was anti-Black, andti-Semitic and prejudiced in many areas including against intelelctuals.
Adlai Stevenson had just finished a particularly good speech at the University of Texas.
Trump had a penchant for making statements and attacks and offering policies that were racist, sexist, boorish, and often unconstitutional. Leaders of this own Republican party urged him to act more presidential, stop the lies and exaggerations, and advocate for traditional Republican positions and programs, but most Republicans supported him. Just before the second presidential debate, video tape was found where r. Trump uttered vile, sexist language and admitting to committing acts of sexual assault and predation on women. Then in the debate, he claimed that it was just “locker room talk” which angered many even further in that he was not an adolescent at the time but was a 59 year old man. Republicans denounced hime in droves with many leaders and office holders of the party withdrawing their support of him as a presidential candidate. Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House and the Senior Republican in the country, then announced that he would no longer support or campaign for Trump, but would only campaign for other Republicans. This was Trump’s campaign speech on that subject. Note the total insensitivity and paranoid belief in a conspiracy theory.
After his Presidency, Adams served in the House of Representatives for many years and was thus active in politics.
More so than any other presidential candidate in history, Trump repeatedly told outright lies and exaggerated most of what had a grain of truth. However, he tended not to see this as lying, and not to be embarrassed when caught by fact checkers, journalists or other candidates. His response was almost always to point out how much public support he had, how many people attended the speech where he made the statement, how well he was doing in the polls. He had a hard core group of supports who did not seem to be concerned with this behavior, and it was difficult for opponents or even journalists to argue that those supports were ignorant, foolish or in error as explained in this quotation.
