Populism Quotes

“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."

[The New Statesman, February 25, 1933]”
― Cyril Connolly

“We have a large public that is very ignorant about public affairs and very susceptible to simplistic slogans by candidates who appear out of nowhere, have no track record, but mouth appealing slogans”
― Zbigniew Brzezinski

“Most Americans are close to total ignorance about the world. They are ignorant. That is an unhealthy condition in a country in which foreign policy has to be endorsed by the people if it is to be pursued. And it makes it much more difficult for any president to pursue an intelligent policy that does justice to the complexity of the world.”
― Zbigniew Brzezinski

“There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than "politicians" think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas (and because it constantly produces them) that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think.”
― Michel Foucault

“[American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak, the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant.”
― Zbigniew Brzezinski

“If we put our trust in the common sense of common men and 'with malice toward none and charity for all' go forward on the great adventure of making political, economic and social democracy a practical reality, we shall not fail.”
― Henry Wallace

“The problem with call-in shows is quite simple, if you only dare to admit it: Democracy is best when not everyone can be heard all the time. If we are constantly reminded of all the stupid things that people say and think, it becomes rather difficult to remember the good and noble arguments for everyone to be able to participate and decide.”
― Johan Hakelius

“Populists (and 'national socialists') look at the supposedly secret deals that run the world 'behind the scenes'. Child's play. Except that childishness is sinister in adults.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress…. The people are demoralized; The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished…. The fruits of the toil of millions are badly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the Republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires.”
― Ignatius Donnelly

“What in Mandela was seen as an almost saintly ability to conciliate could, in a lesser man, be read as weak-kneed populism.”
― Mark Gevisser

“...for Fascism to extend its reach from the streets to the high offices of state, it must secure backing from multiple sectors of society. This insight has value today because of the growing tendency in the media to portray Fascism as a logical outgrowth of populism and to attribute both allegiances to an unhappy lower middle class, as if anti-democratic sentiments were the exclusive property of one economic tier. They’re not, and there is nothing inherently biased or intolerant about being a populist, which Merriam-Webster defines as “a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people.” Were I to be given the choice of sitting inside or outside that large circle of believers, my response would be, “Include me in.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning

“Shatter free from social somnolence, shake yourself awake from nostalgic nausea.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“There are two kinds of Fascists: those who give orders and those who take them. A popular base gives Fascism the legs it needs to march, the lungs it uses to proclaim, and the muscle it relies on to menace—but that’s Fascism from the neck down. To create tyranny out of the fears and hopes of average people, money is required, and so, too, ambition and twisted ideas. It is the combination that kills. In the absence of wealthy backers, we likely would never have heard of Corporal Mussolini or Corporal Hitler. In the absence of their compulsion to dominate at all costs, neither would have caused the harm he did.

Most political movements of appreciable size are populist to one degree or another, but that doesn’t make them Fascist, or even intolerant. Whether they seek to limit immigration or expand it, criticize Islam or defend it, lobby for peace or agitate for war, all are democratic, provided they pursue their goals by democratic means. What makes a movement Fascist is not ideology but the willingness to do whatever is necessary—including the use of force and trampling on the rights of others—to achieve victory and command obedience.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning

“It has become the central question of modern social democracy: why have working-class communities beome less supportive of our cause? Our sister parties around the world are grappling with the same question. The social-democratic project can recover but social democrats have to face up to why populist charlatans are succeeding and what we have to do to regain the initiative in rebuilding trust between urban, suburban and regional Labor communities. (p.7)”
― Chris Bowen, On Charlatans

“The most important lesson [of the 2019 federal election loss] is the same one that parties of the centre left around the world are having to learn: our traditional support base cannot be taken for granted. Working-class voters have plenty of choice when it comes to their vote. (p.11)”
― Chris Bowen, On Charlatans

“A thousand years from now, there'll be no trace of your millions of followers. But my words will keep burning bright as the sun, lighting the course of assimilation generation after generation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Her Insan Ailem: Everyone is Family, Everywhere is Home

“Populism has no future in Macedonia. We are running out of people.”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, Yet Another New Land

“It was too much for the Georgians to bear. They had left Macon as heroes and expected to return triumphant, captives in hand. Instead, they had been the ones chased, ridiculed, spat upon, hunted down by law, man, woman, and child. Not only would street boys take aim at them with spoiled eggs and other garbage, but Boston's higher society mocked them for being uneducated, low class, trash, as it it were they, and not the ones they were there to capture, who dwelled at the bottom of the world.”
― Ilyon Woo, Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

“It's the welfare of society that matters, not the opinion of society run by populism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“Just because it's viral, doesn't make it true. Just because it's popular, doesn't make it right.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iman Insaniyat, Mazhab Muhabbat: Pani, Agua, Water, It's All One

“They ask me, why aren't you still properly known in the mainstream! Well, the Himalayas have been standing for 40 million years, yet it's only in the last century that humans first climbed Everest. They are oblivious of me, because once you get addicted to the transcendental terrains of the Himalayas, all your superficial little molehills will crumble to dust.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

“[Because] of the broad social changes we have explored, social democracy has increasingly found itself dependent on irreconcilable groups, some of whom no longer see their concerns as being addressed by the centre-left. Unfortunately, however, many on the left continue to misdiagnose the problem: democrats in America and social democrats in Europe maintain that this divide is really just about racism or objective economic deprivation. They believe that if they can only give workers more jobs, more growth and less austerity, then their supporters will return. They refuse to acknowledge that people’s concerns about immigration and rapid ethnic change might be legitimate in their own right and that these are not simply to do with jobs.”
― Roger Eatwell, National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy

“Traditions of immigration, along with Anglo settler societies' materialism and economic liberalism, help explain why New World countries are somewhat more open to immigration. However, all but English Canada are subject to increasing populist agitation, with growing pressure on the 'politically correct' consensus that multiculturalism and immigration should not be politicized. These societies will experience some of the fastest rates of white decline in the West over the coming decades.”
― Eric Kaufmann, Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities

“Demography and culture, not economic and political developments, hold the key to under- standing the populist moment. Immigration is central. Ethnic change - the size and nature of the immigrant inflow and its capacity to challenge ethnic boundaries - is the story. Indeed, if history is any guide, we shouldn't be asking why there is a rise in right-wing populism but why it hasn't materialized faster in places such as Sweden or the US. Politicians say diversity is a problem for the nation-state, but it's actually much more of an issue for the ethnic majority. The real question is not 'What does it mean to be Swedish in an age of migration?' but 'What does it mean to be white Swedish in an age of migration?' The Swedish state will adapt to any ethnic configuration, but this is much trickier for the Swedish ethnic majority. While Sweden can make citizens in an afternoon, immi- grants can only become ethnic Swedes through a multi-generational process of intermarriage and secularization.”
― Eric Kaufmann, Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities

“It had been forty years since Europe began to comprehend just how many of its children had been victims of book-burning authoritarians, of populism gone murderously awry, of blind and violent intolerance; forty years since Canadians, Britons, Americans, and their allies landed in France, many of them never to return.”
― Nahlah Ayed, The War We Won Apart: The Untold Story of Two Elite Agents Who Became One of the Most Decorated Couples of WWII

“মিডিয়া যে একটা বিপদ তৈরি করেছে তাতে কোনও সন্দেহ নেই। এক দিকে অডিয়ো-ভিজুয়ালের দাপটে লেখক আর ফিল্মস্টারের দূরত্বটা অনেকখানি কমে আসছে, সাধারণের সামনে নিজেকে দৃশ্যমান করে তুলবার ঝোঁক, নগদ-বিদায়ের লোভ। চোখের সামনে থাকো, নইলে তুমি মৃত— এই রকম একটা আতঙ্কময় উত্তেজনা এখন ছড়িয়ে গেছে সংস্কৃতির জগতে।”
― Shankha Ghosh

“Truth standing on populism, topples just as quickly.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Light of truth runs independent of money, all other paths lead back to animalkind.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“That's why I don't pay to be heard,
Paid truth can't last the test of time.
Light of truth runs independent of money,
All other paths lead back to animalkind.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“One is strong, another beautiful, a third a cunning artificer. Which is best? He who serves the populace.”
― Gene Wolfe, Sword & Citadel