Dorothy Thompson: Quotes about people

“No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument — the Incorporated National Will.”

Dorothy Thompson

Statement of 1935, quoted in Watchdogs of Democracy? : The Waning Washington Press Corps and How it Has Failed the Public (2006) by Helen Thomas, p. 172, and Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals, and Transgenders (2009), p. 450
Context: No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument — the Incorporated National Will. … When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say "Heil" to him, nor will they call him "Führer" or "Duce." But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of "O. K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!"

People

“This kind of thinking is taking a long view, in which one must also count the imponderables, such as the effort of prolonged depression upon restless social forces; the inevitable necessity for National Socialism to move very far to the Left, the possible revolt of the people everywhere against dawdling tactics of their leaders.”

Dorothy Thompson

Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, p. 355 (newspaper column, “As Litvinov Goes,” May 5, 1939)

People , Thinking , Effort

“The idea of the State being a sort of apotheosis of the People, their ultimate expression and good, was invented for the modern age by the German philosopher, Hegel, and both Karl Marx, the father of Communism, and Mussolini, the inventor of Fascism,…”

Dorothy Thompson

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 102

Idea , People , Age , Communication

“The fathers of American Democracy had no exaggerated respect for the State, because they were pre-eminently men of reason and common sense. They never, for instance, identified the State with the People. They knew that the State is, by very definition, an instrument of oppression and coercion, and their idea was to make it strong enough to keep order and ward off enemies, and limit it otherwise very strictly.”

Dorothy Thompson

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 102

Democracy , Strong , People , Sense

“The Communists and Fascists are engaged in a sham struggle of ideas. The actual forms of government under which Fascists and Communists live are almost identical. One claims to abolish private property and attacks the other as its defender. But the property of Russia is not controlled by the people, but by the bureaucracy, operating in the name of the people, just as it is in Germany, where you get your head cut off if you try to hold your property in gold or in anything except German paper.”

Dorothy Thompson

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 62

Idea , People

“The word ‘Liberal’ has now become so variously interpreted that few people know what it means. Those who use it most precisely today are the Fascists and the Communists. They know what Liberalism is, and they are against it. For these people are collectivists.”

Dorothy Thompson

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 58

People

“The attempts of some of our school authorities to prevent students from learning anything about Communism, for instance, are futile. Newspapers exist; correspondents report; people travel. It is quite impossible to act as though Russia did not exist, or were as inaccessible and mysterious as Mars.”

Dorothy Thompson

A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 42
Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)

School , People , Learning , Communication

“Democracy for most of us is not an ism. It is a way of life. It does not represent any rigid form of state or national organization. It is something constantly developing and unfolding, changing from day to day, making mistakes, advancing in this direction and retreating in that, but always animated by a few fundamental ideas: that men have a right to live their own lives, provided they don’t tread too heavily on other people’s toes;…”

Dorothy Thompson

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 31

Democracy , People , Animals , Way

“A great many people say that there is a great battle going on in the world: between Fascism and Communism. Fascism is represented as Capitalism in its ultimate and final form, when it controls the state wholly. Communism is represented as the final expression of democracy. But this theory was invented by fascists and communists. To a democrat, looking on, it seems like a sham battle.”

Dorothy Thompson

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
pp. 29-30

World , Democracy , People , Communication