Demagogue

A demagogue, or rabble-rouser, is a political leader in a democracy who appeals to the emotions, fears, prejudices, and ignorance of people in order to gain power and promote a political or personal agenda.

Quotes

• Demosthenes: A demagogue must be neither an educated nor an honest man; he has to be an ignoramus and a rogue.
  • Aristophanes Knights, line 191-193. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus).

• Freedom is a demagogue.
  • Giannina Braschi, United States of Banana (2011)

• The peculiar office of a demagogue is to advance his own interests, by affecting a deep devotion to the interests of the people. Sometimes the object is to indulge malignancy, unprincipled and selfish men submitting but to two governing motives, that of doing good to themselves, and that of doing harm to others. The true theatre of a demagogue is a democracy, for the body of the community possessing the power, the master he pretends to serve is best able to reward his efforts. As it is all important to distinguish between those who labor in behalf of the people on the general account, and those who labor in behalf of the people on their own account, some of the rules by which each may be known shall be pointed out.
  The motive of the demagogue may usually be detected in his conduct. The man who is constantly telling the people that they are unerring in judgment, and that they have all power, is a demagogue. Bodies of men being composed of individuals, can no more be raised above the commission of error, than individuals themselves, and, in many situations, they are more likely to err, from self-excitement and the division of responsibility. The power of the people is limited by the fundamental laws, or the constitution, the rights and opinions of the minority, in all but those cases in which a decision becomes indispensable, being just as sacred as the rights and opinions of the majority; else would a democracy be, indeed, what its enemies term it, the worst species of tyranny. In this instance, the people are flattered, in order to be led; as in kingdoms, the prince is blinded to his own defects, in order to extract favor from him.
  • James Fenimore Cooper, The American Democrat (1838), On Demagogues

• The demagogue is usually sly, a detractor of others, a professor of humility and disinterestedness, a great stickler for equality as respects all above him, a man who acts in corners, and avoids open and manly expositions of his course, calls blackguards gentlemen, and gentlemen folks, appeals to passions and prejudices rather than to reason, and is in all respects, a man of intrigue and deception, of sly cunning and management, instead of manifesting the frank, fearless qualities of the democracy he so prodigally professes.
  The man who maintains the rights of the people on pure grounds, may be distinguished from the demagogue by the reverse of all these qualities. He does not flatter the people, even while he defends them, for he knows that flattery is a corrupting and dangerous poison. Having nothing to conceal, he is frank and fearless, as are all men with the consciousness of right motives. He oftener chides than commends, for power needs reproof and can dispense with praise.
  He who would be a courtier under a king, is almost certain to be a demagogue in a democracy.
  • James Fenimore Cooper, The American Democrat (1838), On Demagogues

• Unfortunately, the opinion has gone forth that no politician dares to be the advocate of peace when the question of war is mooted. That will be an evil hour — the sand of our republic will be nearly run — when it shall be in the power of any demagogue, or fanatic, to raise a war-clamor, and control the legislation of the country. The evils of war must fall upon the people, and with them the war-feeling should originate. We, their representatives, are but a mirror to reflect the light, and never should become a torch to fire the pile.
  • Jefferson Davis, speech in Congress (1846)

• God give us men. The time demands
  Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and willing hands;
  Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
  Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
  Men who possess opinions and a will;
  Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
  Men who can stand before a demagogue
  And dam his treacherous flatteries without winking;
  Tall men, sun-browned, who live above the fog
  In public duty and in private thinking.
  • Josiah Gilbert Holland, Wanted, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
• We know that extremist demagogues emerge from time to time in all societies, even in healthy democracies. The United States has had its share of them, including Henry Ford, Huey Long, Joseph McCarthy, and George Wallace. An essential test for democracies is not whether such figures emerge but whether political leaders, and especially political parties, work to prevent them from gaining power in the first place—by keeping them off mainstream party tickets, refusing to endorse or align with them, and when necessary, making common cause with rivals in support of democratic candidates. Isolating popular extremists requires political courage. But when fear, opportunism, or miscalculation leads established parties to bring extremists into the mainstream, democracy is imperiled.
  • Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (2018) How Democracies Die. New York: Crown.

• A demagogue is a person with whom we disagree as to which gang should mismanage the country.
  • Don Marquis, as quoted in O Rare Don Marquis, a Biography, by Edward Anthony (1962), Ch. 11

• Whilst the exploits of the conqueror and the intrigues of the demagogue are faithfully preserved through a succession of ages, the persevering and unobtrusive efforts of genius, developing the best blessings of the Deity to man, are often consigned to oblivion.
  • David Mushet, as cited in Industrial Biography; Iron-workers and Tool-makers, by Samuel Smiles, p. 189