populist leaders Quotes

Talking about [Donald] Trump, there's nothing wrong with Trump. He's who he is. It's wrong with us, who let him [win]. That's what's wrong. It's not that he's going to change, but the people who think like him.

Where the laws are not supreme, there demagogues spring up.

I don't care about Donald Trump himself. I care and I worry about the very big base that supports him because this kind of language would have been absolutely nonexistent maybe 15, 20 - by the way, I follow the American elections, and I have never seen someone who is that offensive. I have seen people who are stupid. But stupid and offensive, that's new.

I understand politicos gotta make bank. But cloistering with the Hollywood elite is not how you prove you're a man of the people.

Politics now is fractured. The rising tide of nationalism and populism threatens to consume our politics. Whether it is Trump or Putin abroad, or Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage at home, our political order is increasingly dominated by forces that seek to divide us.

Donald Trump has made it clear that he regards Hungary highly.

I think that social media platforms and technology have been the accelerator for the push for the populist-style administrations in democratically elected presidents.

Trump is a hybrid phenomenon as I see it. He is somewhat like UKIP and Le Pen with his right-wing populism that espouses some fascist overtones, but he's also partly just the old neoliberalism in disguise, especially if we look at some of the people he appointed to his cabinet.

In Turkey, the Kamalist elite ignored the religious leadership, the countryside, and the Kurds. Creating groups of very unhappy people who cohered into a new political opposition. The same happened in Israel, and Menachem Begin connected with them. Today, both Erdogan and Netanyahu rule from a support base that is more religious, more rural, and less educated, where honor and nationalism are important. That makes the relationship between the two very hard.

We’ve had plenty of populist figures in our past, but they had a different degree of substance than Mr. Trump. William Jennings Bryan [the Democratic nominee for president in 1896, 1900 and 1908] came out of a period like today. The industrial revolution was like our tech revolution and globalization. The pace of life had sped up and made people anxious. Telegrams and telephones were fast. Immigration was huge. And Bryan’s supporters, like Trump’s, were fearful about the way the country was changing.

American populist politics has a long tradition, from Andrew Jackson to Huey Long to Joseph McCarthy. But the politician Trump is most like could be George Wallace.

Nigel Farage and Sean Hannity is like a super group of idiots.

We still have politicians who strive for a different type of country: Kaczynski as well as Orbán in Hungary. They want a gradual coup. If Orbán stayed in power in Hungary or if Kaczynski were to win an election in our country, it would be dangerous. Both men have an authoritarian idea of government; democracy is merely a façade.

A CNN poll shows both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump in the general. Are republicans about to elect a loser? Who knows? But at least we can say it sells great. Then in 2032, we can nominate Justin Bieber and start all over again.

Populism, literally, means speaking for 'the people.' In practice it means demagoguery.

I think our party and particularly our movement, the conservative movement, does have more of a problem with con men and charlatans than the Democratic Party. I mean, the incentives seem to be set up to allow people - as long as you have a band of a few million fanatical followers, you can make money. The Democrats have managed to figure out how not to do that.

We have Trumpist (ph) tendencies in Europe. Look up Marine Le Pen in France. Look at the Five Star Movement headed by a clown by profession, Beppe Grillo, in Italy.

I think it's important not to start drawing parallels, for example, between Theresa May, a fairly traditional conservative politician, who's now prime minister and Le Pen in France. Those aren't the same and the situation in each country is different.

The people excited by ambitious demagogues, sooner or later return into the hands of the Aristocracy.

I think that Donald Trump has capitalized and prayed on people's fears.

American history has always had elements of what we now think of as Trumpism - Joe McCarthy, George Wallace, Father Coughlin. It's not as if these things haven't always existed, and they were powerful. The big difference is Trump is president.

I understand what's going on in people's minds, and I think the political leaders better be asking themselves 'why is it, that Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders and maybe even others are having the impact that they are having?'

To something that looks very different. The thing to understand here is that Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, they're not the disease and they're not the symptom of the disease. They are the beta test of a cure for the perspective of the people.

People are gravitating towards Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders because they are doing their own thing. I think people are trying to cut out the middle man and just get to the source and get away from Washington politics.

Trump's pronounced anti-immigrant stance is reminiscent of both Le Pen in France and Orban in Hungary, although he is far from alone in taking such positions in much of today's Republican Party.