Quotes about democrat
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Ann Coulter photo
Abd al-Karim Qasim photo
Christopher Hitchens photo
Olof Palme photo

“They build their democratic institutions with pedantic conscientiousness.”

Olof Palme (1927–1986) Swedish 20th century prime minister

Palme about the Islamic Republic of Iran. Quoted in Vänstern och tyranniet: det galna kvartsseklet, Per Ahlmark (1995) ISBN 9175662868, page 21.

Owen Lovejoy photo

“So far as my right to life and liberty is concerned, I did not get it from Congress or Parliament. I did not get it from the Democratic Party. I did not get it from any evil spirits whose names commence with the same initials as the Democrats.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 https://web.archive.org/web/20160319081944/https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA234#v=onepage&q&f=false (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 234
1860s, Speech (October 1860)

“I'm here to say there is a choice. If you want to stick to the status quo, pick the Republicans or Democrats, but don't complain. Nobody can do a better job than I can.”

Scott Ashjian (1963) American businessman

[Jourdan, Kristi, Tea Party hopeful - gives voters third choice, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1B, March 8, 2010]

Walter Lippmann photo
Paul Kingsnorth photo
Nico Perrone photo
Dinesh D'Souza photo
Andrei Sakharov photo
Condoleezza Rice photo
Jean-Claude Juncker photo

“Monetary policy is a serious issue. We should discuss this in secret, in the Eurogroup […] I'm ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious […] I am for secret, dark debates.”

Jean-Claude Juncker (1954) Luxembourgian politician

Jean-Claude Juncker, 20 April 2011, quoted in " Eurogroup chief: 'I'm for secret, dark debates' http://euobserver.com/9/32222", EUobserver, 21 April 2011. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
2011

Roy Jenkins photo

“The sense of shame that the Chancellor should have felt is far more personal. It is a sense of shame for having taken over an economy with a £1,000 million surplus and running it to a £2,000 million deficit. It is a sense of shame for having conducted our internal financial affairs with such profligacy that our public accounts are out of balance as never before. It is a sense of shame for having presided over the greatest depreciation of the currency, both at home and abroad, in our history. It is a sense of shame for having left us at a moment of test far weaker than most of our neighbours…There is, I believe, a greater threat to the effective working of our democratic institutions than most of us have seen in our adult lifetimes. I do not believe that it springs primarily from the machinations of subversively-minded men, although no doubt they are there and are anxious to exploit exploitable situations. It comes much more dangerously from a widespread cynicism with the processes of our political system. I believe that the Chancellor contributed to that on Monday. I believe that it poses a serious challenge to us all…None of us should seek salvation through chaos. There is a duty too to recognise that we could slip into a still worse rate of inflation and a world spiral-ling downwards towards slump, unemployment and falling standards, with our selves, temporarily at least, well in the vanguard. What is required is neither an imposed solution nor an open hand at the till. The alternative to reaching a settlement with the miners is paralysis…The task of statesmanship is to reach a settlement but to do it in a way which opens no floodgates for if they were opened, it would not only damage everyone but it would undermine the differential which the miners deserve and which the nation now needs them to have.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1973/dec/19/economic-and-energy-situation in the House of Commons (19 December 1973)
1970s

Hugh Downs photo
Roger Scruton photo
Allen C. Guelzo photo

“What we see in Lincoln is a collection of the virtues we think are most important in a democratic leadership.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, Interview with Tom Mackaman (2013)

Condoleezza Rice photo
S. S. Van Dine photo
Juan Cole photo

“The state of Israel is a project of Jewish nationalism that is as legitimate as any other national project. But Israel as a state is not perfect and cannot be above criticism in democratic societies, including practical criticism.”

Juan Cole (1952) American scholar

Israel
Source: The Misuses of Anti-Semitism http://hnn.us/articles/1002.html, Juan Cole, History News Network, September 30, 2002

Owen Lovejoy photo

“Now, what about this negro equality of which we hear so much, in and out of Congress? It is claimed by the Democrats of today, that Jefferson has uttered an untruth in the declaration of principles which underlie our government. I still abide by the democracy of Jefferson, and avow my belief that all men are created equal. Equal how? Not in physical strength, not in symmetry of form and proportion, not in graceful of motion, or loveliness of feature, not in mental endowment, moral susceptibility, and emotional power. Not socially equal, not of necessity politically equal. Not this, but every human being equally entitled to his life, his liberty, and the fruit of his toil. The Democratic Party deny this fundamental doctrine of our government, and say that there is a certain class of human beings which have no rights. If you maliciously kill them, it is no murder. If you take away their liberty, it is no crime. If you deprive them of their earnings, it is no theft. No rights which another is bound to regard. Was there ever so much diabolism compressed into one sentence? Why do |the Democrats come to us with their complaints about the negroes? I for one feel no responsibility in the matter. I did not create them; was not consulted.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA177 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 177
1850s, The Fanaticism of the Democratic Party (February 1859)

Michael Franti photo

“It shouldn't be a Republican or Democratic issue whether we take care of the environment. That should be a human issue.”

Michael Franti (1966) American rapper

Michael Franti Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s75CPceiCw&feature=related

Donald J. Trump photo
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Boris Berezovsky photo
Andrew Sullivan photo
Herbert Marcuse photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
Nycole Turmel photo
Selahattin Demirtaş photo

“The overthrow of a democratically elected government is a very serious crime and those involved — great or small — must face the consequences. Otherwise we will continue to see a repetition of coups and other politically motivated criminal activity.”

Petero Mataca (1933–2014) Catholic archbishop

Statement to the media, 23 June 2005 http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=23578, on the government's proposal to establish a Reconciliation and Unity Commission (excerpts)

Martin Amis photo
Will Eisner photo

“1905
Tsar Nicholas II made inept efforts to mollify his angry people by granting basic liberties and allowing a parliament (Duma), which he kept dissolving. Meanwhile he ruthlessly suppressed the people’s rising. Royal troops fired ona peaceful march of workers in St. Petersburg on January 9, known as Bloody Sunday. Anti-Jewish pogroms were rampant. The Russian edition, published by Dr. Nilus, of the “Protocols of Zion” was widely circulated. Monarchists frequently read it aloud to illiterate peasants.
1914
The start of World War I led to Russian military defeats. A failing economy brought about terrible civilian suffering. Loyalists openly spoke about a “Jewish plot”.
Food riots, strikes, and the tsar’s panicky dissolution of the Fourth Duma exploded into revolution. By November, the Bolsheviks (the revolutionary faction of the former Social Democratic workers’ party) had seized control of the government. Royalist Russians began a civil warand were defeated. Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and was executed, along with his family, by Bolsheviks in 1918.
Russian aristocrats fled Russia and dispersed throughout Europe, the Far East, and the Middle East. There they settled as expatriates. Most had little work experience. In order to earn money, they frequently sold valuables. Some of these items provided information on the Russian use of anti-Semitic literature.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005)

Marc Maron photo
Herbert Morrison photo

“The bridge was not of such great importance or social significance, but it was symbolical that Labour was capable of decision, that the machinery of democratic public administration would work if the men and women in charge were determined that it should work.”

Herbert Morrison (1888–1965) British Labour politician

The Times, 10 December 1934.
Explaining his decision to personally begin the dismantling of the old Waterloo Bridge; the government had refused to allow the council to build a replacement so Morrison and his allies forced the issue by breaking up the existing bridge.

Jimmy Wales photo

“Greatest misconception about Wikipedia: We aren’t democratic. Our readers edit the entries, but we’re actually quite snobby. The core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable, and thinks some people are idiots and shouldn’t be writing.”

Jimmy Wales (1966) Wikipedia co-founder and American Internet entrepreneur

Source: The Encyclopedist’s Lair, The New York Times, November 18, 2007, 2007-11-19 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18wwln-domains-t.html?ex=1196139600&en=25f7b166ceba3519&ei=5070&emc=eta1,

Angela Davis photo
Ann Coulter photo
Shankar Dayal Sharma photo
Charles Krauthammer photo
Benjamin Stanton photo

“That is the naked, undisguised proposition of the Democratic Party in the year of grace 1860.”

Benjamin Stanton (1809–1872) American politician

Speech (1860)

Thomas Sowell photo
George William Russell photo
Neal Boortz photo

“Politics? I'm a confirmed Libertarian. I believe that the principal difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats just want to grow our Imperial Federal Government a bit faster than the Republicans do.”

Neal Boortz (1945) American author, journalist, and radio host

Source: "Neal Boortz - Libertarian", [http://www.theadvocates.org/celebrities.html Libertarian Celebrities & VIPs http://www.theadvocates.org/celebrities/neal-boortz.html,, Advocates for Self-Government, 2006-09-08, http://web.archive.org/20030719050508/www.theadvocates.org/celebrities/neal-boortz.html, 2003-07-19]

Tom DeLay photo

“You know, the Democrats want to balance the budget by raising spending and raising taxes. The Soviet Union had a balanced budget.”

Tom DeLay (1947) American Republican politician

Meet the Press, 2003 December 12.
2000s

Dinesh D'Souza photo

“Scaring the children: for Halloween last night, I dressed as a Democrat and when kids came to my door, I took half of their candy!”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Facebook post https://www.facebook.com/DSouzaDinesh/photos/a.279556495404346.96395.216709768355686/985875871439068/ (1 November 2014).

Kancha Ilaiah photo

“If the God believed by a person doesn’t have democratic values, where will this person get those democratic values from? In fact, shouldn’t they explain why they create such Gods who are violent, undemocratic and anti-women?”

Kancha Ilaiah (1952) Indian scholar, activist and writer

Quoted in Scroll.in (13 March 2016) http://scroll.in/article/731416/case-filed-against-social-scientist-kancha-ilaiah-for-asking-is-god-a-democrat.

John Ralston Saul photo
Allen C. Guelzo photo

“[V]ery little has changed in the fundamental ideology of the Democratic Party since Jackson's day.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2000s, Good Democrats and Bad Democrats (2006)

Michael Rosen photo

“The competition between chunks of capital is getting fiercer, there is the same old same old desperate need to keep wages down, desperate need to substitute machines for labour (but that costs trillions of investment) and no matter how hard you exploit workers, you still need to sell stuff to them, and if their wages are low, they can't buy the stuff. You can force the poorly paid into borrowing money (credit cards, wonga etc) but there comes a point when that causes a credit crisis: someone somewhere says they want some dosh and a bank somewhere says they haven't got the dosh (Northern Rock, last time). Let's remember, none of this is caused by migrants or left social democrats. This is a crisis entirely born from a system that is locked into competition for markets. So, these fervid rows between squadrons of extremely unpleasant individuals are rows between people who deep down know that they can't control this system of running the making and distribution of the things we need. They are just coming up with fantasies on how to stay in power while the next phase veers from crisis to crisis. It is terrible for millions of people in awful insecure, low paid jobs and/or in insecure, lousy housing, or if they are disabled, or for millions trying to migrate their way out of poverty and despair. We should be alarmed when members of the ruling class start pleading with us to take sides with them against the 'elite': one section of the elite calling for us to oppose the elite.”

Michael Rosen (1946) British children's writer

'Neither Brussels or the City - for the many not the few'. http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.com/2018/07/neither-brussels-or-city-for-many-not.html (6 July 2018)

Ian Kershaw photo
Andrew Linzey photo
George W. Bush photo
Adolf Hitler photo

“The Democratic Party has exploited black leadership.”

Crispin Sartwell (1958) American philosopher

White Liberals: We’re Not Racist (August 29, 2016)

Peter Medawar photo

“Populism is a path that, at its outset, can look and feel democratic. But, followed to its logical conclusion, it can lead to democratic backsliding or even outright authoritarianism.”

Max Fisher American journalist

Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, “How can Populism Erode Democracy? Ask Venezuela,” The New York Times, (April 2, 2017)

Garry Kasparov photo
Gore Vidal photo
Enda Kenny photo

“Is [assassination] only justified if the target is a reactionary, anti-democratic, anti-human rights obscurantist like bin Laden?”

Enda Kenny (1951) Irish Fine Gael politician and Taoiseach

Joe Higgins questions Kenny on support from the Taoiseach, Tanaiste and presidents of the European Commission and European Council for use of assassination.
I know you are a good Christian man who has your job to do in here from a political point of view. Many of his victims in the twin towers in New York were of Irish descent or directly Irish.
Kenny apologising to Higgins after slandering him. Irish Independent http://www.independent.ie/national-news/ok-you-are-not-a-bin-laden-fan-taoiseach-tells-joe-higgins-2637835.html
2010s

Alfred de Zayas photo

“A truly democratic country must proactively inform the public so that the public can decide on spending priorities.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order exploring the adverse impacts of military expenditures on the realization of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx.
2015, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

James Madison photo

“[I]n proportion as slavery prevails in a State, the Government, however democratic in name, must be aristocratic in fact.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Influence of Domestic Slavery on Government
1790s

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo

“We can now return to the NCERT guideline which proclaims that the conflict between Hindus and Muslims in medieval India shall be regarded as political rather than religious. There is no justification for such a characterisation of the conflict. The Muslims at least were convinced that they were waging a religious war against the Hindu infidels. The conflict can be regarded as political only if the NCERT accepts the very valid proposition that Islam has never been a religion, and that it started and has remained a political ideology of terrorism with unmistakable totalitarian trends and imperialist ambitions. The first premises as well as the procedures of Islam bear a very close resemblance to those of Communism and Nazism. Allah is only the predecessor of the Forces of Production invoked by the Communists, and of the Aryan Race invoked by the Nazis.
My heart sinks at the very idea of such a sinister scheme being sponsored by an educational agency set up by the government of a democratic country. It is an insidious attempt at thought-control and brainwashing. Having been a student of these processes in Communist countries, I have a strong suspicion that this document has also sprung from the same sort of mind. This mind has presided for long over the University Grants Commission and other educational institutions, and has been aided and abetted by the residues of Islamic imperialism masquerading as secularists.”

The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

Rudolph Rummel photo

“Socialism aside, there also has been a rejection of Western values, of which individual freedom is prominent, and acceptance of some form of value-relativism (thus, no political system is better than any other). In some cases this rejection has turned to outright hostility and particularly anti-Americanism, and thus opposition to American values, such as freedom. To accept, therefore, that democratic freedom is inherently most peaceful, is to the value-relativist, to say the unacceptable—that it is better.”

Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic

“Political Systems, Violence, and War,” chap. 14, in "Approaches to Peace: An Intellectual Map", edit, W. Scott Thompson and Kenneth M. Jensen, Washington, D.C., United States Institute of Peace, 1991, pp. 347-370; and “The Politics of Cold Blood,” Society, Vol. 27 (November/December, 1989) pp. 32-40

K. R. Narayanan photo

“I see and understand both the symbolic as well as the substantive elements of my life. Sometimes I visualise it as a journey of an individual from a remote village on the sidelines of society to the hub of social standing. But at the same time I also realise that my life encapsulates the ability of the democratic system to accommodate and empower marginalised sections of society.”

K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) 9th Vice President and the 10th President of India

Source: Venkitesh Ramakrishnan Citizen President K.R. Narayanan, 1920-2005 http://www.frontline.in/navigation/type=static&page=flonnet&rdurl=fl2224/stories/20051202005012500.htm, Frontline

William Kristol photo

“Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single democratic primary. I'll predict that right now.”

William Kristol (1952) American writer

Fox News Sunday, December 17, 2006 http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/12/edward_kennedy_frederick_smith.html
2000s

Michael Badnarik photo
Antonio Negri photo
Alexandra Kollontai photo
Alfred de Zayas photo
Elena Kagan photo

“It is absolutely true that I have served in two Democratic administrations. You can tell something from me and my political views from that.”

Elena Kagan (1960) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Senate Confirmation Hearing, reported in " Elena Kagan under fire from Republicans http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jun/29/elena-kagan-barack-obama-supreme-court", The Guardian (29 June 2010).

Viktor Yushchenko photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
James A. Garfield photo
Thomas Frank photo

“Thanks to its chokehold on the nation’s culture, liberalism is thus in power whether its politicians are elected or not; it rules over us even though Republicans have prevailed in six out of the nine presidential elections since 1968; even though Republicans presently control all three branches of government; even though the last of the big-name, forthright liberals of the old school (Humphrey, McGovern, Church, Bayhm, Culver, etc.) either died or went down to defeat in the seventies; and even though no Democratic presidential nominee has called himself a "liberal" since Walter Mondale. Liberalism is beyond politics, a tyrant that dominates our lives in countless ways great and small, and which is virtually incapable of being overthrown.Conservatism, on the other hand, is the doctrine of the oppressed majority. Conservatism does not defend some established order of things: It accuses; its rants; it points out hypocrisies and gleefully pounces on contradictions. While liberals use their control of the airwaves, newspapers, and schools to persecute average Americans — to ridicule the pious, flatter the shiftless, and indoctrinate the kids with all sorts of permissive nonsense — the Republicans are the party of the disrespected, the downtrodden, the forgotten. They are always the underdog, always in rebellion against a haughty establishment, always rising up from below.All claims of the right, in other words, advance from victimhood. This is another trick the backlash has picked up from the left. Even though republicans legislate in the interests of society’s most powerful, and even though conservative social critics typically enjoy cushy sinecures at places like the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal, they rarely claim to speak on behalf of the wealthy of the winners in the social Darwinist struggle. Just like the leftists of the early twentieth century, they see themselves in revolt against a genteel tradition, rising up against a bankrupt establishment that will tolerate no backtalk.Conservatism, on the other hand, can never be powerful or successful, and backlashers revel in fantasies of their own marginality and persecution.”

Ibid.(pp. 119-120).
What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004)

Ariel Sharon photo

“It is not in our interest to govern you. We would like you to govern yourselves in your own country. A democratic Palestinian state with territorial contiguity in Judea and Samaria and economic viability, which would conduct normal relations of tranquility, security and peace with Israel. Abandon the path of terror and let us together stop the bloodshed. Let us move forward together towards peace.”

Ariel Sharon (1928–2014) prime minister of Israel and Israeli general

Address by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the Fourth Herzliya Conference, December 18, 2003; cited in: Terje Rød-Larsen, ‎Fabrice Aidan, ‎Nur Laiq (2014), The Search for Peace in the Arab-Israeli Conflict. p. 373
2000s

Barry Eichengreen photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
Chris Hedges photo

“An omnipresent surveillance state … makes democratic dissent impossible. Any state that has the ability to inflict full spectrum dominance on its citizens is not a free state.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

29:29
“ Our Only Hope Will Come Through Rebellion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOlg_2qAbUA” (2014)

William James photo
George Soros photo

“It’s clear that the Democratic Party believes a radical left candidate is their best chance to win the White House this year. Hillary’s just a little bit too sane. Under the bus with her.”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

May 31, 2008 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30149_The_First_Notes_of_Hillarys_Swan_Song&only

Alexis De Tocqueville photo

“A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.”

Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter X-XIV, Chapter XIII.

Jiang Yi-huah photo

“A democratic country has zero tolerance for all illegal monitoring operations.”

Jiang Yi-huah (1960) Taiwanese politician

Jiang Yi-huah (2013) cited in " Jiang defends Cabinet ahead of poll http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2013/10/15/391346/Jiang-defends.htm" on The China Post, 15 October 2013

Charles Krauthammer photo
George F. Kennan photo

“We must be very careful when we speak of exercising "leadership" in Asia. We are deceiving ourselves and others when we pretend to have answers to the problems, which agitate many of these Asiatic peoples. Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3 of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships, which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction…
In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with the aspiration to 'be liked' or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers' keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague — and for the Far East — unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

VII. Far East
Memo PPS23 (1948)

Julius Nyerere photo

“Democracy is not a bottle of Coca-Cola which you can import. Democracy should develop according to that particular country. I never went to a country, saw many parties and assumed that it is democratic. You cannot define democracy purely in terms of multi-partist parties.”

Julius Nyerere (1922–1999) Tanzanian politician and writer, first Prime Minister and President of Tanzania

When asked about Single and Multi Party Democracy, June 1991 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. ...Before Mandela there was Nyerere http://web.archive.org/20071206052629/freddymacha.blogspot.com/2007/08/photo-from-past_5408.html/

Jacob Zuma photo