Politics Quotes

“Beyond Man's knowing truth lies another truth unconquered...”
― Anton Sammut, Memories of Recurrent Echoes

“A year [after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965], the white backlash had become an emotional electoral issue in California, Maryland and elsewhere. In several Southern states men long regarded as political clowns had become governors or only narrowly missed election, their magic achieved with a “witches’” brew of bigotry, prejudice, half-truths and whole lies.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

“We have long known that in closed societies, the the arrival of democracy, with its clashing voices and differing opinions, can be "complex and frightening," as [Karen] Stenner puts it, for people unaccustomed to public dissent. The noise of argument, the constant hum of disagreement--these can irritate people who prefer to live in a society tied together by a single narrative. The strong preference for unity, at least among a portion of the population, helps explain why numerous liberal or democratic revolutions, from 1789 onward, ended in dictatorships that enjoyed wide support. Isaiah Berlin once wrote of the human need to believe that "somewhere, in the past or in the future, in divine revelation or in the mind of an individual thinker, in the pronouncements of history or science... there is a final solution." Berlin observed that not all of the things that human beings think are good or desirable are compatible. Efficiency, liberty, justice, equality, the demands of the individual, and the demands of the group--all these things push us in different directions. And this, Berlin wrote, is unacceptable to many people: "to admit that the fulfilment of some of our ideals may in principle make the fulfilment of others impossible is to say that the notion of total human fulfilment is a formal contradiction, a metaphysical chimera." Nevertheless, unity is a chimera that some will always pursue.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“The jangling, dissonant sound of modern politics; the anger on cable television and the evening news; the fast pace of social media; the headlines that clash with one another when we scroll through them; the dullness, by contrast, of the bureaucracy and the courts; all of this has unnerved that part of the population that prefers unity and homogeneity. Democracy itself has always been loud and raucous, but when its rules are followed, it eventually creates consensus. The modern debate does not. Instead, it inspires in some people the desire to forcibly silence the rest.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“There is no final solution, no theory that will explain everything. There is no road map to a better society, no didactic ideology, no rule book. All we can do is choose our allies and our friends--our comrades, as [Ignazio Silone] puts it--with great care, for only with them, together, is it possible to avoid the temptations of the different forms of authoritarianism once again on offer. Because all authoritarianisms divide, polarize, and separate people into warring camps, the fight against them requires new coalitions. Together we can make old and misunderstood words like liberalism mean something again; together we can fight back against lies and liars; together we can rethink what democracy should look like in a digital age.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“From the early stages of his campaign and right into the Oval Office, Donald Trump has spoken harshly about the institutions and principles that make up the foundation of open government. In the process, he has systematically degraded political discourse in the United States, shown an astonishing disregard for facts, libeled his predecessors, threatened to “lock up” political rivals, referred to mainstream journalists as “the enemy of the American people,” spread falsehoods about the integrity of the U.S. electoral process, touted mindlessly nationalistic economic and trade policies, vilified immigrants and the countries from which they come, and nurtured a paranoid bigotry toward the followers of one of the world’s foremost religions.

To officials overseas who have autocratic tendencies, these outbursts are catnip. Instead of challenging anti-democratic forces, Trump is a comfort to them--a provider of excuses.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning

“Political change--alterations in public mood, sharp shifts in crowd sentiment, the collapse of party allegiance--has long been a subject of intense interest to academics and intellectuals of all kinds. There is a vast literature on revolutions, as well as a mini-genre of formulas designed to predict them. Most of these investigations focus on measurable, quantifiable economic criteria, like degrees of inequality or standards of living. Many seek to predict what level of economic pain--how much starvation, how much poverty--will produce a reaction, force people to the street, persuade them to take risks.

Very recently, this question has become more difficult to answer. In the Western world, the vast majority of people are not starving. They have food and shelter. They are literate. If we describe them as "poor" or "deprived," it is sometimes because they lack things that human beings couldn't dream of a century ago, like air-conditioning or Wi-Fi. In this new world, it may be that big, ideological changes are not caused by bread shortages but by new kinds of disruptions. These new revolutions may not even look like the old revolutions at all. In a world where most political debate takes place online or on television, you don't need to go out on the street and wave a banner to assert your allegiance. In order to manifest a sharp change in political affiliation, all you have to do is switch channels, turn to a different website every morning, or start following a different group of people on social media.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“The issue is not merely one of false stories, incorrect facts, or even election campaigns and spin doctors: the social media algorithms themselves encourage false perceptions of the world. People click on the news they want to hear; Facebook, YouTube, and Google then show them more of whatever it is that they already favor, whether it is a certain brand of soap or a particular form of politics. The algorithms radicalize those who use them too. If you click on perfectly legitimate anti-immigration YouTube sites, for example, these can lead you quickly, in just a few more clicks, to white nationalist sites and then to violent xenophobic sites. Because they have been designed to keep you online, the algorithms also favor emotions, especially anger and fear. And because the sites are addictive, they affect people in ways they don't expect. Anger becomes a habit. Divisiveness becomes normal. Even if social media is not yet the primary news source for all Americans, it already helps shape how politicians and journalists interpret the world and portray it. Polarization has moved from the online world into reality.

The result is a hyper-partisanship that adds to the distrust of "normal" politics, "establishment" politicians, derided "experts," and "mainstream" institutions--including courts, police, civil servants--and no wonder. As polarization increases, the employees of the state are invariably portrayed as having been "captured" by their opponents. It is not an accident that the Law and Justice Party in Poland, the Brexiteers in Britain, and the Trump administration in the United States have launched verbal assaults on civil servants and professional diplomats. It is not an accident that judges and courts are now the object of criticism, scrutiny, and anger in so many other places too. There can be no neutrality in a polarized world because there can be no nonpartisan or apolitical institutions.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“This doesn't mean we can or should return to an analog past: there was a lot that was wrong with the old media world, and there is much that is right about the new: political movements, online forums, and new ideas that wouldn't exist without it. But all these changes--from the fragmentation of the public sphere to the absence of a center ground, from the rise of partisanship to the waning influence of respected neutral institutions--do seem to bother people who have difficulty with complexity and cacophony. Even if we weren't living through a period of rapid demographic change, even if the economy were not in turmoil, even if there were no health crisis, it is still the case that the splintering of the center right and the center left, the rise in some countries of separatist movements, the growth in angry rhetoric, the proliferation of extremist and racist voices that had been marginalized for half a century would persuade a chunk of voters to vote for someone who promises a new and more orderly order.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“These groups and movements were also inspired by a conviction that democracy is worthless, that elections cannot bring real change, and that only the most extreme and desperate actions can stop the decline of a certain vision of America.

By 2016, some of the arguments of the old Marxist left--their hatred of ordinary, bourgeois politics and their longing for revolutionary change--met and mingled with the Christian right's despair about the future of American democracy. Together, they produced the restorative nostalgic campaign rhetoric of Donald Trump.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“It is possible that we are already living through the twilight of democracy; that our civilization may already be heading for anarchy or tyranny, as the ancient philosophers and America's founders once feared; that a new generation of clercs, the advocates of illiberal or authoritarian ideas, will come to power in the twenty-first century, just as they did in the twentieth; that their visions of the world, born of resentment, anger, or deep, messianic dreams, could triumph. Maybe new information technology will continue to undermine consensus, divide people further, and increase polarization until only violence can determine who rules. Maybe fear of disease will create fear of freedom.

Or maybe the coronavirus will inspire a new sense of global solidarity. Maybe we will renew and modernize our institutions. Maybe international cooperation will expand after the entire world has had the same set of experiences at the same time: lockdown, quarantine, fear of infection, fear of death. Maybe scientists around the world will find new ways to collaborate, above and beyond politics. Maybe the reality of illness and death will teach people to be suspicious of hucksters, liars, and purveyors of disinformation.

Maddeningly, we have to accept that both futures are possible. No political victory is ever permanent, no definition of "the nation" is guaranteed to last, and no elite of any kind, whether so-called "populist" or so-called "liberal" or so called "aristocratic," rules forever.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“Fascism feeds on social and economic grievances, including the belief that the people over there are receiving better treatment than they deserve while I’m not getting what I’m owed. It seems today that almost everyone has a grievance: the unemployed steelworker, the low-wage fast-food employee, the student up to her ears in debt, the businessperson who feels harassed by government regulations, the veteran waiting too long for a doctor’s appointment, the fundamentalist who thinks war is being waged against Christmas, the professional with her head brushing against a glass ceiling, the Wall Street broker who feels unfairly maligned, the tycoon who still thinks he is being overtaxed.

Obviously, personal gripes—legitimate or not—have been part of the human condition ever since Cain decided to work out his jealousy on his brother. What is an added concern now is the lack of effective mechanisms for assuaging anger. As described above, we all tend to live in media and information bubbles that reinforce our grievances instead of causing us to look at difficult questions from many sides. Rather than think critically, we seek out people who share our opinions and who encourage us to ridicule the ideas of those whose convictions and perspectives clash with our own. At many levels, contempt has become a defining characteristic of American politics. It makes us unwilling to listen to what others say—unwilling, in some cases, even to allow them to speak. This stops the learning process cold and creates a ready-made audience for demagogues who know how to bring diverse groups of the aggrieved together in righteous opposition to everyone else.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning

“When a quarter of a million miners are unemployed, it is a part of the order of things that Alf Smith, a miner living in the back-streets of Newcastle, should be out of work. But no human being finds it easy to regard himself as a statistical unit. So long as Bert Jones across the street is still at work, Alf Smith is bound to feel himself dishonoured and a failure.”
― George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier

“When democratic, social, and political theories are preposterous, subjecting such knowledge to praxis will only yield undesirable outcomes.”
― Ousainou Bobb

“[The Democracy of the Naïve ]
There are still the naïve folks who talk about democracy
They even claim that the future of democracy in this country or that is in danger…
As if democracy had a past or a present,
And therefore, its future is now in danger…
There was never democracy or justice, my friends…
There world has and will remain ruled
By the whims of the elite and the invisible hands
That get the naïve publics to consider
The problems, desires, whims, and agendas of the chosen few
As noble human endeavors
That require the struggle and revolution
Of the naïve and kindhearted people…
There is no democracy nor revolutions, my Friends,
Except those that must happen silently to remove all elites
That plan in secret to push the naïve publics
To appoint or remove this government or that
Based on their interests…
What do you think, my Friends?
Do you still believe that the future of democracy is in danger?

[Original poem published in Arabic on December 21, 2022 at ahewar.org]”
― Louis Yako

“Far too often we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re standing for something that will never allow us to get up.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Fact based on opinion is neither.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“The boundary of your state is not the boundary of your moral concern.”
― Kwame Anthony Appiah

“Nations matter morally, when they do, as things desires by autonomous agents whose autonomous desires we ought to acknowledge and take account of, even if we cannot always accede to them. States, on the other hand, matter morally intrinsically. They matter not because people care about them, but because they regulate our lives through forces of coercion that will always require moral justification.”
― Kwame Anthony Appiah

“It's not about finding guilt let alone placing blame because everyone is guilty of something, it's simply about fixing the situations we all face regardless of innocence or wealth.”
― Jordan G Kobos

“Why, per Freedom House, is democracy now "under assault and in retreat"? Why are many people in positions of power seeking to undermine public confidence in elections, the courts, the media, and--on the fundamental question of earth's future--science? Why have such dangerous splits been allowed to develop between rich and poor, urban and rural, those with a higher education and those without? Why has the United States--at least temporarily --abdicated its leadership in world affairs? And why, this far into the twenty-first century, are we once again talking about Fascism?

One reason, frankly, is Donald Trump. If we think of Fascism as a wound from the past that had almost healed, putting Trump in the White House was like ripping off the bandage and picking at the scab.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning

“[Germany's] political establishment--big business, the military, and the Church--had initially dismissed the Nazis as a band of loudmouthed hooligans who would never attract wide support. Over time, they saw value in the party as a bulwark against Communism, but nothing more. As for Hitler, they were not nearly so scared of him as they should have been. They underestimated the man because of his lack of schooling and were taken in by his attempts at charm. He smiled when he needed to and took care to answer their questions with reassuring lies. He was, to members of the old guard, clearly an amateur who was in over his head and unlikely to remain popular for long.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning

“Oral histories from the period testify to the hope and excitement that Fascism generated. Men and women who had despaired of political change suddenly felt in touch with the answers they had been seeking. Eagerly they traveled long distances to attend Fascist rallies, where they discovered kindred souls keen to restore greatness to the nation, traditional values to the community, and optimism about the future. Here, in this crusade, they heard explanations that made sense to them about the powerful currents that were at work in the world. Here were the chances they had sought to participate in youth groups, athletic organizations, charity drives, and job-training activities. Here were the connections they needed to start a new business or take out a loan. Many families that had stopped after bearing two children, thinking that number all they could afford, now found the confidence to bear four or five or six. In the congenial company of fellow Fascists, they could share an identity that seemed right to them and engage in a cause that each could serve with gladness and singleness of heart. These were prizes, they believed, worth marching for and even giving up democratic freedoms for—provided their leaders could do as promised and make their fantasies real.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning

“The biggest tyranny in mankind is always the status quo.”
― Nigel Farage

“There are two kinds of people in politics: there are those who want to be something, and there are those who want to do something.”
― Nigel Farage

“[Our Contemporary Lexicon]
As years go by
And lives are wasted,
As we lose everything,
We discover the real meaning
Of the words shaping our lives…
Words that have filled our contemporary lexicon,
We know the words yet don’t fully grasp them,
And the more we hear them,
The more confusing they become…
Words like
War
Bank
Justice
Media
Capital
Investment
Advertisement
Weapon
School
University
Hospital
Humanitarian organization
Civil society
Ethnicity
Race
Religion
Modernity
Backwardness
Secularism
Trade
Love
Family
Prison
Home
Immigration
Visa
Passport
Borders
Democracy
Elections
Car
Plane
And countless others…
Words that may pretend to oppose each other publicly,
Yet are secretly in bed with each other
Making love, acting as synonyms and French kissing…
Words that in reality
Walk hand in hand and are united against us
To achieve the mutual goal of depriving most of us
Of having a decent life with dignity…
Words used by allies and foes alike, as needed!
Words that have become rustier than our souls,
Yet their fake glitter continues to deceive millions upon billions
Of people believing faithfully in them
Or working hard to access their imagined benefits...
As years go by,
We learn late in the game
That all the meanings we ascribed to such words
Are in fact killing us
Raping us
In the homeland
On the border
And in exile!
As the game continues,
At a late hour,
We discover that
Our worries and sleepless nights
In hopes of a bearable world
Have all been wasted in vain…
What is happening today
Has happened throughout history…
And the game shall continue
Until we reexamine this lexicon
Until we destroy it
And rewrite all its pages
To erase all the monsters its words
Within all of us…

(February 6, 2015)”
― Louis Yako, أنا زهرة برية [I am a Wildflower]

“How many times can you divide a minority culture—.”
― Isabel Waidner, We Are Made Of Diamond Stuff

“People are eager to hear good news. But, whose good news?!”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, Yet Another New Land

“Haidt shows that people of different political persuasions draw on different intuitive concepts -or moral foundations- when thinking about right or wrong.”
― Bradley Campbell, The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars

“The nominalist view of morally indifferent acts was pregnant with two developments that occurred shortly afterward, within a few years of each other. The first was from Niccolò Machiavelli, who understood that, if nature no longer defines what is good for man (and there is no certain God to define it either), then man can. Man’s will fills the vacuum left by nature; he can define his own end.”
― Robert R. Reilly