Populist Quotes - Page 2

• Populists and isolationists ignore the tangible benefits that have resulted from our active international role during the past half-century.

  David Rockefeller

  Ignorance, Past, Ignorant

  David Rockefeller (2011). “Memoirs”, p.368, Random House

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• When politics promote hate, it becomes a rule, and populist provocation becomes standard. It has been the same throughout the entire history of humanity.

  Lidija Dimkovska

  Hate, Humanity

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I suspect that many of the great cultural shifts that prepare the way for political change are largely aesthetic. A Buick radiator grille is as much a political statement as a Rolls Royce radiator grille, one enshrining a machine aesthetic driven by a populist optimism, the other enshrining a hierarchical and exclusive social order.

  J. G. Ballard

  Order, Optimism, Political

  "Age of unreason". Interview With Jeannette Baxter, www.theguardian.com. June 22, 2004.

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• Globalization is a reality. And this makes most leaders today realize that populist illusions can't be sustained before they collapse into stagnation and leave their political supporters deeply disillusioned. You can't inflate away your troubles or allow mountains of debt to build up if, as a country, you have to make your living in a globally competitive environment... Building prosperity requires caution and patience. It requires time. Populism is a short cut that doesn't work.

  Fernando Henrique Cardoso

  Country, Cutting, Reality

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• English plus Microsoft equals a new cultural revolution a global means of communication that is irrepressibly contagious, adaptable, populist and subversive.

  Robert McCrum

  Communication, Mean, Microsoft

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• The lesson is that voters in both parties are in a very anti-establishment, populist mood. Hillary Clinton is the establishment candidate.

  Mara Liasson

  Party, Lessons, Voters

  "As Iowa Race Nears, Anti-Establishment Leaders Hold Strong". "Weekend Edition Sunday" with Rachel Martin, www.npr.org. January 24, 2016.

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• The Republican Party, right now, is a conservative populist party.

  Mara Liasson

  Party, Conservative, Republican

  "As Iowa Race Nears, Anti-Establishment Leaders Hold Strong". "Weekend Edition Sunday" with Rachel Martin, www.npr.org. January 24, 2016.

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• There have always been hucksters, cranks and populists who see a brief rise in American politics, going back to William Jennings Bryan at the turn of the century. The body politic has a way of expelling these invaders.

  Joseph Rago

  Body, Way, Crank

  "And then there were 16". "The Journal Editorial Report" with Paul Gigot, www.foxnews.com. July 25, 2015.

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• History is a series of mistakes. Now the task is to plan for those mistakes so those of us who are populists can actually take over the reins of power when the right mistakes are made.

  Zephyr Teachout

  Mistake, Tasks, Made

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Never underestimate a populist. We have come to a moment where language is very important. Saying the media is the number one enemy of society is a way to create confusion and set people against each other. It's like a virus. Democracy dies and is born every day. If you don't take an active role in what is going on, somebody can easily steal it from you.

  Edgar Ramirez

  Confusion, People, Enemy

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• . . . rock and roll, as I see it, is the ultimate populist art form, democracy in action, because it's true: anybody can do it.

  Lester Bangs

  Art, Rocks, Rock And Roll

  Lester Bangs (1980). “Blondie”, Touchstone

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• Static puppets, I wanted them to move, they're looking out the windows, but we didn't have time to rig those. I have more ideas than I can execute also every time that I do anything. I put the puppets in because people love 'em. I'm a populist in that sense.

  Wayne White

  Moving, Ideas, People

  "That's what art really tries to do. Just strip away all the pretense and it's trying to entertain and excite". Interview with Julie Thomson, logger.believermag.com. October 9, 2013.

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• What created democracy was Thomas Paine and Shays Rebellion, the suffragists and the abolitionists and on down through the populists and the labor movement, including the Wobblies. Tough, in your face people... Mother Jones, Woody Guthrie... Martin Luther King and Caesar Chavez. And now it’s down to us.

  Jim Hightower

  Mother, Kings, People

  "The Lowdown from Hightower" by Michael Winship, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 30, 2010.

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• I don't read the reviews because they're too horrible and the reviewers have not been big supporters of mine over the years, probably because I make these big populist movies and they hate it.

  Rob Cohen

  Hate, Years, Reviews

  Source: screenrant.com

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• But if we keep denying that there are problems with some male immigrants, then we will just drive the people into the arms of the right-wing populists. Without the ignorance or the trivialization on the part of all the political parties, there would be no Pegida or Alternative for Germany.

  Alice Schwarzer

  Party, Ignorance, Wings

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• There's something in life that's cool, it's relatively cheap, and fun, and populist. Even when it's elitist.

  Stephen Malkmus

  Fun, Elitist

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I've never really considered myself just a street artist. I consider myself a populist.

  Shepard Fairey

  Artist, Graffiti, Streets

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• Republicans ought to propose conservative answers to the concerns that are uppermost on most voters’ minds. The libertarian-populist method seems to be to start with the solutions and then to imagine that voters have the relevant concerns. And while many of the proposed solutions have great potential appeal to conservative voters, few would do much to expand their ranks.

  Ramesh Ponnuru

  Mind, Answers, Libertarian

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• If we say leaders are incompetent, we are going to fuel extremist, populist, xenophobic and ultra-nationalist parties.

  Jose Manuel Barroso

  Inspiring, Party, Leader

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• Republicans advising candidates to "grab onto the best elements of [his] anti-Washington populist agenda," but warning that Trump is a "misguided missile," "subject to farcical fits" and candidates should avoid getting drawn into "every Trump dust-up," but should quickly condemn some of his comments, including "wacky things about women."

  Dalia Mogahed

  Dust, Agendas, Elements

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

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• I'm vulgar, I'm a populist. But isn't that what the mayor should be?

  Jeffrey Archer

  Should, Mayors, Vulgar

  "Jeffrey Archer" by Patrick Barkham, www.theguardian.com. July 21, 1999.

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• There are many fans of hard rock music that have been wrongly pigeonholed as apathetic. This music is not music for the elitist coffeehouse culture in SoHo. It' s rock 'n' roll music for kids across the land, and I think that makes it much more subversive in a way, in that it has the form and the function of a powerful, populist music, but it can carry very incendiary messages.

  Tom Morello

  Powerful, Kids, Thinking

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• Class warfare or soaking the so-called rich may make for good populist demagoguery and serve the political ends of the governing masterminds, but it does nothing to solve the grave realities of the federal government's insatiable appetite for spending and its inability to reform itself.

  Mark Levin

  Reality, Government, Class

  Mark R. Levin (2013). “The Liberty Amendments”, p.91, Simon and Schuster

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• In Europe, populism is sort of a dirty word, but we have this wonderful history of populism in America, including the abolitionist populists and the white and black populists working together in the nineteenth century.

  Zephyr Teachout

  Dirty, Europe, White

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Julia Louis-Dreyfus is just perfect in 'Veep.' She gets to show off the spiky claws beneath her patrician finesse. The obvious way to play 'Veep' would be to make Louis-Dreyfus a folksy heroine, one with more common sense or populist heart than her enemies. But she isn't one.

  Rob Sheffield

  Heart, Play, Common Sense

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