Populism Quotes

The way to get people's votes is to say that all their problems are caused by other people, and that you will stop those other people from giving them trouble. But if you really want to help, then you can tell them the truth and risk losing their votes.

All power is fast getting into the hands of the very lowest people.

I'm going to make America great again.

Fuck the EU!

I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.

What is the appeal of Trump, really? It's nostalgic: "Make America great again." Like European nationalists, he has a vision of a "real" America, one which predates globalization, immigration, feminism, the civil rights movement and technological change, an imaginary 1950s to which we can now return. That is actually not very different from the kind of language that Marine Le Pen uses, or parts of the Brexit movement.

Sure we'll have Fascism here, but it will come as an anti-Fascism movement.

... rich white leaders of the American South defeated populism in the late 19th century, by persuading poor Whites to hate poor Blacks.

The greatest fallacy of democracy is that everyone's opinion is worth the same

Nationalist, anti-European, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim public political figures, seem a worrying picture of a possible European future. We could still fall back into pre-Europe... and it worries me.

What too many of Mr. Trump's supporters want is an American strongman, a president who will make the proverbial trains run on time.

Everyone, without distinction as to economic and social conditions, has the right to the preservation of his health through the highest standards of food, clothing, housing and medical care which the resources of the State and community can provide. The responsibility of the State and community for the health and safety of its people can be fulfilled only by provision of adequate health and social measures

Islam does not command us to fight against other religions but against oppression and poverty.

If you want to reach a large audience, appeal to idiots.

It's time to put the national interest before the interests of Wall Street.

The usual pattern of demagogues is to promise the moon, fail to deliver, and then blame vulnerable others for those failures.

The most politically painless way to hand out goodies, without taking responsibility for their costs, is to pass a law saying that somebody else must provide those goodies at their expense, while the politicians take credit for generosity and compassion.

Everything Republicans once claimed to advocate - entitlement reform, free trade, standing up to dictators, encouraging the march of freedom around the world - turns out to be negotiable and reversible, depending on Donald Trump's whims and the furies of his base.

I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican or a conservative, the election of Trump is a national tragedy for multiple reasons. It will go down as one of the worst tragedies in American history. But he's not a dictator. This happened because we either allowed it or voted for it.

Trump wants to be an autocrat, he does want to be a Vladimir Putin-style ruler. His chief strategic advisor, Steve Bannon, is a follower of Alexander Dugin. Dugin believes liberal democracy should be destroyed and it should be destroyed from the right, and an alliance of autocracy should form between the United States, Europe and Russia, in order to confront Islam.

I think behavioral economists don't have any more of an explanation about the rise of Trump than anyone else.

European right-wing parties are in fact surprisingly fragmented, disagreeing over almost everything except ultranationalist sentiments and xenophobic opposition to non-European immigrants.

China has been weakened to an extreme degree, and all we have is the hearts and minds of the people. If we cast them aside, what do we have to sustain our country?

Being naked approaches being revolutionary; going barefoot is mere populism.

As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.