Quotes about republican (761 quotes, page 5)

“The recently passed law to "end welfare as we know it" came about because a lethargic public has been aroused at last, not by the failure of the welfare system but by its success. The public indignation, however, would have been of no effect had we not elected a Republican Congress. No Democratic Congress would ever have passed such a law. Just as welfare reform may help end the poverty industry, the California Civil Rights Initiative on the November ballot may lead to the demise of another 1960s product, the racism and sexism industry. The 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination based upon race, sex, color, religion or ethnic origin. The act was based on the premise that the only race to which a person must belong is the human race. With respect to God-given natural rights, "all men are created equal."”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, The Party of Lincoln vs. The Party of Bureaucrats (1996)

Men , God , Religion , Law

“Like the Republican Party, CPAC has become heavily Trumpified. … So it has come to this: a conservative group whose worst fault in years past may have been excessive flat tax enthusiasm now opens its doors to the blood and soil nationalists of Europe.”

Mona Charen (1957) political writer

I'm Glad I Got Booed at CPAC (2018)

Past

“I wonder if it's possible to be a Republican and a Christian at the same time.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

C-SPAN broadcast (21 June 2004)
Senate years (2001 – January 19, 2007)

Time

“Abraham Lincoln was self-educated. His curriculum included Shakespeare, the Bible, Euclid and the Declaration of Independence, the monuments to the freedom of the human soul, the possession not of western man, but of a humanity compounded of all colors and every condition. In Independence Hall on February 22, 1861, Lincoln asked what it was, above all else, that went forth to the world on July 4, 1776. It was not, he said, the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the motherland, but something in that Declaration giving hope to the world for all future time. The declaration gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all would have an equal chance. These are the principles upon which the Republican Party must stand, in 1996 no less than in 1860.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, The Party of Lincoln vs. The Party of Bureaucrats (1996)

Men , World , Education , Hope

“When it comes to philosophical convictions, most conservatives more closely resemble their beltway liberal friends than Republican Party voters. From the country's dismal finances and propagandized population, a sizable segment has concluded that conservative power-brokers and liberal power-brokers are indistinguishable.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Trump Doesn’t Need to Talk Like A Conservative," http://www.unz.com/imercer/trump-doesnt-need-to-talk-like-a-conservative/ The Unz Review, March 19, 2016.
2010s, 2016

Country

“A picture that I painted after the defeat of the Republicans in Spain [in 1936, Max Ernst was a resolute opponent of the Spanish dictator General Franco, who was supported by Germany's Nazi regime] is 'The Fireside Angel'. This is, of course, an ironic title for a rampaging beast that destroys and annihilates anything that gets in its way. This was my idea at the time of what would probably happen in the world, and I was right.”

Max Ernst (1891–1976) German painter, sculptor and graphic artist

Quote in 'Room 10, Max Ernst', the exhibition text of FONDATION BEYELER 2 - MAX ERNST, 2013, texts: Raphaël Bouvier & Ioana Jimborean; ed. Valentina Locatelli; transl. Karen Williams
Max Ernst is referring to his painting 'L'ange du foyer' / 'Le triomphe du surréalisme', 1937 ('The Fireside Angel' / The Triumph of Surrealism'); the alternative title was offered by Ernst himself in 1938, when he spontaneously opted for a different title: 'The Triumph of Surrealism'.
1936 - 1950

World , Angels , Way , Idea

“Too many Republicans treat English as a second language, with Beltway lingo being their native tongue.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Syndicated column https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19961212&id=1zsdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SKYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6510,2218257&hl=en, retrieved from The Tuscaloosa News, December 13, 1996.
1980s–1990s

“Republicans may be in control of the legislative branch, but they lack principled leadership. Consequently, true conservatives have faced an increasingly hostile environment from the DC establishment. It takes more than empty rhetoric to lead. The GOP must become a party of principle again. And in so doing, we have to learn to fight for conservatism and our Constitution again.”

Chris McDaniel (1971) American politician

Mississippi’s Chris McDaniel: Oust Boehner http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/05/mississippis-chris-mcdaniel-oust-boehner/ (January 5, 2015)

Hostility , Learning , Fight

“Roe was a shock to me because even at 16 or 17 years old I understood that abortion was killing an unborn baby. I mean it was simple and straightforward and indeed it is simple and straightforward. We try to make this complicated, but it's simple and straightforward. You've got a new human life developing in the mother's womb and abortion is the business of killing that baby. Now, the Planned Parenthood videos have made that very graphic but you didn't actually need the videos, uh, at least I didn't need to the videos to know that. But even then we didn't think of abortion as something Democrats were for and Republicans were against. The division of the parties into a pro-abortion party and an anti-abortion party came a little later.”

Robert P. George (1955) American legal scholar

2016, Interview with Bill Kristol (2016)

Life , Business , Thinking , Baby

“I am not a career politician. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I'm a working man with commonsense ideas and goals. I describe myself politically as fiscally conservative and socially moderate-to-liberal.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)

Idea

“On March 20, 1854, the Republican Party was established in Ripon, Wisconsin. Referred to as the 'GOP' or 'Grand Old Party', it established for one reason, to break the chains of slavery and ensure the unalienable rights endowed by the Creator of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would be for all Americans. The Republican Party was created to achieve individual freedom. Then, as now, the antagonist to the Republican Party has been the Democrats, the party of collective subjugation and individual enslavement, then physical, now economic.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Voting Democratic for the next 200 years (2014)

Life , Freedom , Happiness

“Conservatives need to be reinvigorated in their pursuit of core principles; the movement must become more than simply an ideological fig leaf for the Republican Party. It is time to focus on achieving real victory—a victory over the economic collectivism and cultural barbarism that is modern liberalism.”

Jeffrey T. Kuhner (1969) American journalist

The Conservative Surrender http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=17803, Human Events, 2006-11-1

Time , Victory

“The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. I mean, they're a pretty monolithic party. They pretty much, they all behave the same, they all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party. Again, the Democrats abduct everybody you can think of. So, as this gentleman was talking about, it's a coalition, a lot of it independent. The problem is, we gotta make sure that turns into a party, which means this: I've gotta spend time in the communities, and our folks gotta spend time in the communities. I think, we're more welcoming to different folks, because that's the type of people we are. But that's not enough. We do have to deliver on things, particularly on jobs, and housing, and business opportunities and college opportunities, and so fourth. I think, there has been a lot of progress in the last 20-40 years, but the stakes keep changing. I think there's a lot of folks who vote, maybe right now, in the Asian-American communities, who don't wanna vote Democrats, but they're angry with the President on his immigration policy, the Patriot Act. But, what we need to do while this is going on, is develop a really close relationship with the Asian-American community, so later on there's gonna be a benefit, you know, more equal division. There'll be some party loyalty, as people would rememeber that we were there when it really made a difference. That's really what I'm trying to do. If I come in here 8 weeks before the elections, we're not getting anywhere. Asking if you would vote, you're still mad at the lesser of two evils. So that's why I'm here 3.5 years before the elections. We want different kind of people to run for office, too. We want a very diverse group of people running for office, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos. I think Villaraigosa's election in Los Angeles is incredibly important for the Democratic Party. Bush can go out and talk all he wants about "this is the party of opportunity", you know, he can make his appointments, Condi Rice, or, what's this guy's name, Commerce Secretary, Gutierrez. But you can't succeed electorally if you're a person of color in then Republican Party, there're very few people who have succeeded. You can pick some out, JC Watts, I'm trying to think of an Asian-American who's been a success who's a Republican, I can't think of one off the top of my head. You know, there's always a few, but not many. Because this is the party of opportunity for people of color, and for communities of color. And we're hoping to cement that relationship so that'll always be that way. [Q: You've been very tough on the Republicans, some Democrats criticized you over the weeked for doing that, Joe Biden…] I just got off the phone with John Edwards. What happened was, John Edwards was, in a sense, set up by the reporter, "well you know, Governor Dean said this". Well what I said was, the Republican leadership didn't seem to care much about working people. That's essentially the gist of the quote, and, you know, the RNC put out a press release. I don't think there's a lot of difference between me and John Edwards right now, I haven't spoken to Senator Biden, but I'm sure that I will. Today, it's all over the wires that Durbin and Sheila Jackson Lee and all of these folks are coming to my defense. Look, we have to be tough on the Republicans; the Republicans don't represent ordinary Americans, and they don't have any understanding of what it is to have to go out and try to make ends meet. You know, the context of what I was talking about was these long lines that you have to wait in to vote. How could you design a system that sometimes causes people to vote, to stand in line for 6 or 8 hours, if you had any understanding what their lives are like: they gotta pick up the kids, they gotta work, sometimes they have two jobs. So that was the context of the remarks. [crosstalk/laughter] This is one of those flaps that comes up once in awhile when I get tough, but I think we all wanna be tougher on the Republicans.”

Howard Dean (1948) American political activist

Source: Discussion with reporters Portia Li and Carla Marinucci, in San Francisco http://web.archive.org/web/20060427191647/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/06/07/MNdean07.TMP&o=1, June 6, 2005

People , Hope , Angels , Color

“The truth is that it is a culture of dependency as promulgated by the race-baiters and new plantation overseers of the inner city that has created what we’re seeing play out in Baltimore. There is where the blame lies, but there are very few who are willing to admit just that. Remember what ESPN sports commentator Stephen A. Smith said? He wished that for one voting cycle, the black community would vote Republican. Heck, they could do no worse — and look, even the people of the State of Maryland decided to try something different and elected a Republican governor. Who, when finally asked, immediately activated the National Guard to quell the violence and chaos which the Democrat Mayor of Baltimore failed to comprehend, and control. Perhaps what we’re witnessing in Baltimore is the pure definition of insanity — continuing to do the same thing and expect different results.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Dirty little secret no one wants to admit about Baltimore (2015)

People , Truth , Communication , Sport

“Every American should take note of those candidates who stand with the economic interests of America’s citizens, and who stand with the Rule of Law, by rejecting Amnesty in all its forms. It is wrong when Democrats seek to demean the intrinsic value of American citizenship by importing the Third World to replace the millions of voters their redistributionist policies and racial grievance politics have driven away. It is also wrong when Republican leadership conveniently chooses to waive the application of the law to guarantee a supply of unskilled and low-cost workers for their corporate benefactors.”

Steve King (1949) US Representative for Iowa

Rep. Steve King: ‘DACA’ – ‘Delivering Amnesty to Central Americans’ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/26/exclusive-rep-steve-king-daca-delivering-amnesty-central-americans/ (September 26, 2017)

World , Law

“I have notified the speaker that I will temporarily step aside from my position as majority leader pursuant to rules of the House Republican Conference and the actions of the Travis County district attorney today.”

Tom DeLay (1947) American Republican politician

On his indictment for conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9507677/ (28 September 2005).
2000s

Housing

“I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican—that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Campaign appearance in Worcester, Massachusetts, quoted in * 2011-12-13
Corn
David
w:David Corn
Romney in 2002: I'm 'Moderate,' 'Progressive,' and 'Not a Partisan Republican' <nowiki>[Video]</nowiki>
Mother Jones
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/romney-2002-moderate-progressive-not-partisan-Worcester
2011-12-18
2002 gubernatorial campaign

People , Thinking

“WEINER: Look, the point is very simple, there are inequities in the present way we distribute insurance. There are winners and there are losers. The winners are the insurance industry. […] There is not bipartisanship on this particular issue. The people who sit on this side, at the risk of offending anyone, generally support the idea of standing up for the American people in their battle against big insurance. And the people generally speaking who sit on this side of the chamber and specifically speaking as well in a lot of cases, simply won’t permit that to happen and haven’t for a generation. Well, that is going to end now. […] Enough of the phonyness. We are gonna solve this problem because for years our Republican friends have been unable to and unwilling to. Deal with it!”

Anthony Weiner (1964) American politician

applause
Exchange http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOQ2GEGm3v0 on the floor of the House of Representatives on health care reform (February 24, 2010)

People , Way , Idea , Support

“The strength of a nation, especially of a republican nation, is in the intelligent and well-ordered homes of the people.”

Lydia Sigourney (1791–1865) American poet

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 324.

People , Home , Intelligence

“What the heck is a neocon anyway in 2003? A friend of mine suggests it means the kind of right-winger a liberal wouldn't be embarrassed to have over for cocktails. That's as good a definition as any, since the term has clearly come unmoored from its original meaning. … In social policy, it stands for a broad sympathy with a traditionalist agenda and a rejection of extreme libertarianism. Neocons have led the charge to combat some of the wilder excesses of academia and the arts. But there is hardly an orthodoxy laid down by Neocon Central. I, for one, am not eager to ban either abortion or cloning, two hot-button issues on the religious right. On economic matters, neocons--like pretty much all other Republicans, except for Mr. Buchanan and his five followers--embrace a laissez-faire line, though they are not as troubled by the size of the welfare state as libertarians are.”

Max Boot (1969) American writer and historian

[What the Heck Is a ‘Neocon’?, http://web.archive.org/web/20030210064645/http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002840, OpinionJournal.com, The Wall Street Journal, December 30, 2002]

Art

“Gentleman, I am a republican, a radical republican, a Black republican, a republican dyed in the wool, and for one I want the republican party to live as long as I do… It is the party of law and order, of liberty and progress, of honor and honesty, as against disloyalty, moral stagnation, dishonest voting, and repudiation.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Speech: “I Speak to You as an American Citizen” speech, Oct. 1, 1870, Douglas Papers, ser. I, 4:275
1870s

Law

“I fully realize that every promise I make, the Republicans will double and the Democrats will redouble. They think this will make me vulnerable, but they don’t know I have some tricks up my sleeve, along with a box of raisins to munch on while I’m waiting for the returns to come in.”

Gracie Allen (1902–1964) American actress and comedienne

Source: How to Become President (1940), Ch. 5 : Issues and how to pick them

Thinking , Waiting , Box

“Forts, arsenals, garrisons, armies, navies, are means of security and defence, which were invented in half-civilized times and in feudal or despotic countries; but schoolhouses are the republican line of fortifications, and if they are dismantled and dilapidated, ignorance and vice will pour in their legions through every breach.”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

The Common School Journal, Vol. III, No. 17 (1 September 1841)

Time , Country

“In 1964, days before the presidential election which, incidentally, we lost, Ronald Reagan went on national television and challenged America saying that it was a "Time for Choosing." He saw two paths for America, one that embraced conservative principles dedicated to lifting people out of poverty and helping create opportunity for all, and the other, an oppressive government that would lead America down a darker, less free path. I'm no Ronald Reagan and this is a different moment but I believe with all my heart and soul that we face another time for choosing, one that will have profound consequences for the Republican Party and more importantly, for the country.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2016, Remarks on Donald Trump and the 2016 race

People , Soul , Time , Help

“There is one kind of judge. There is an independent judge under our Constitution. And the fact that they may have been a Republican or Democrat or an independent in a past life is completely irrelevant to how they conduct themselves as judges. And I think two centuries of experience has shown us that that ideal which the Founders established can be realized and has been realized and will continue to be realized.”

Brett Kavanaugh (1965) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination OF Brett M. Kavanaugh to be Ciruit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit https://www.congress.gov/108/chrg/shrg24853/CHRG-108shrg24853.htm (April 27, 2004)

Life , Thinking , Past

“Government — they used to teach it in college. It's actually something you should study and learn and know how to do. The Republicans always run on the idea that government isn't very effective. Well, not the way you do it. But it can be effective.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

As quoted in "Real talk with Bill Maher" by Joan Walsh at Salon.com (16 February 2007) http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/int/2007/02/16/maher/index2.html

Way , Idea , Study , Learning

“The Democratic Party was the party of slavery and Jim Crow, and the 'Solid South' was solidly Democratic for one hundred years. All of the racism that we associate with that region originated with and was enforced by elected Democrats. It could not have been otherwise, there were virtually no Republicans in power in the south for a century after the end of Reconstruction… Redress a larger historical imbalance in the way people perceive the two major political parties. Democrats have been effectively cleansed of their racist past, their sins implicitly transferred to the Republicans.”

Bruce Bartlett (1951) American historian

Source: 2000s, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past (2008), p. xiii

People , Way , Past

“Like red meat thrown before the Atkins crowd in the Republican Party, the initiative would teach problem solving, negotiating, and listening skills, which might then trickle up to the Bush Administration.”

Kate Clinton (1947) American comedian

Give Me an L http://progressive.org/?q=node/870
The Progressive, Unplugged

Problem

“I didn't come to Washington to be a 'yes man' for any president, Democrat or Republican. I didn't come to Washington to get along and win any popularity contests.”

Jesse Helms (1921–2008) American politician

In 1989, as quoted in The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/05/us/politics/00helms.html (2008)
1980s

“I assume that somewhere after he attacked Arizona; engaged in what I think was a racist dialogue to try to frighten Latinos away from the Republican Party; stood next to the president of Mexico and said, "Borders don't matter because we have strong bonds"; had the President of Mexico get a standing ovation from Democrats for attacking an American state, and has his own State Department apologize to the Chinese for the Arizona law.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

On the Record
Fox News
2010-05-26
Gingrich: Obama "engaged" in "racist dialogue to try to frighten Latinos away from the Republican Party"
2010-05-26
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201005260081
2011-03-30
2010s

Law , Thinking , Strong

“Republicans bring out Colin Powell and J. C. Watts because they have no program, no policy. The play that game because they have no other game. They have no love and no joy. They'd rather take pictures with black children than feed them.”

Donna Brazile (1959) American author, educator, and political activist and strategist

As quoted in "Gore Aide Dealt From Bottom of Race Deck, Powell Says" http://www.highbeam.com/Search?searchTerm=%22Republicans+bring+out+Colin+Powell%22 (7 January 2000), by Ceci Connolly, The Washington Post

Love , Children , Game , Joy

“I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets.”

Elizabeth Warren (1949) 28th United States Senator from Massachusetts

As quoted in The Unwinding, an inner history of the New America https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780374102418 (2013), by George Packer, New York: Farrar, Straus, and giroux. p. 345.
2013

People , Support

“Conservatives — Republicans — are socialists.
True, they may desire to hold you down atop the stone altar and cut your still-beating heart out with an obsidian knife for a set of entirely different reasons — national security, Judaeo-Christian traditions, 'common' decency — than the liberals or 'progressives' or Democrats do, but to you, the important part is cutting your heart out with an obsidian knife, not whatever excuse they may offer for doing it.
This is why, no matter which political party happens to be in power, ordinary people — whose thinking and hard work maintain this civilization each and every day — never seem to get an even break with regard to their individual liberty or holding onto the fruits of their labor. It's why the late philosopher Robert LeFevre referred to Democrats and Republicans as 'Socialist Party A' and 'Socialist Party B.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"To Reduce Them Under Absolute Despotism".

People , Thinking , Heart , Parting

“In order to win victory now, we want the vote of every Republican — of every Grant Republican, and every anti-Grant Republican, in America — of every Blaine man and every anti-Blaine man. The vote of every follower of every candidate is needed to make success certain. Therefore I say, gentlemen and brethren, we are here to take calm counsel together, and inquire what we shall do.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Speech Nominating John Sherman for President (1880)

Success , Victory

“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]

“There is no real republicanism except that of literature. If I find a human face light up at some quotation which everyone ought to know, that man, be he duke or dustman, is my brother. That is the bond of literature. Study it, the glorious literature of the first country in the world—your own.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at Birkbeck College (20 March 1924), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), p. 146.
1924

World , Literature , Study , Light

“I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

The Petersburg men had written Douglass seeking advice about supporting John M. Langston as their Republican candidate for Congress. He would be their first black representative, but earlier he had worked against the Republican party. Douglass called him a trickster and said not to support anyone "whose mad ambition would imperil the success of the Republican party."
1880s, Letter to the Men of Petersburg (1888)

Hope , Color

“That one man can run faster than another is no reason to prevent the latter from entering the race. Indeed, until the race is run, how do we know who can run faster? In comparing the known inequalities among whites to the alleged inequalities between blacks and whites, Wilson illuminates the logical and moral irrelevance of the distinction of the races in considering the principles of republican government. Nevertheless, this topic could not be addressed in the pure light of reason and nature, because public opinion, North or South, would not permit it.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

Source: 2000s, A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (2000), pp. 228–229

Nature , Light

“This country is a one-party country. Half of it is called Republican and half is called Democrat. It doesn't make any difference. All the really good ideas belong to the Libertarians.”

Hugh Downs (1921) American broadcaster

1997

Idea , Country

“The national Log Cabin Republicans are ridiculous. They’re not conservative at all. I don’t even think they’re gay — they’re bi (partisan). GOProud is comprised of real conservatives who happen to be gay. (Same with the Texas LCRs, for whom I’ve been signing books for years.)”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

Dear Mainstream Media Reporter Who Wasted My Time (February 2, 2011) http://www.humanevents.com/2011/02/09/dear-mainstream-media-reporter-who-wasted-my-time/.
2011

Books , Thinking

“Today the Republican Party attracts neither the farmer nor the industrial worker. Why not? To represent the people one must know them. Lincoln did. The Republican Party leadership does not. The greatest praise I can give Lincoln on this his anniversary is to say he would be ashamed of his party's leadership today.”

George Aiken (1892–1984) American politician

1938 radio broadcast from New York City marking Abraham Lincoln's birthday, quoted in Vermont Today, Vermont's Great Moments of the 20th Century http://www.vermonttoday.com/century/topstories/gaiken.htm

People

“The de facto merger between Breitbart and the Trump Campaign represents a landmark achievement for the "Alt-Right." A fringe element has effectively taken over the Republican Party.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in (August 25, 2016)

“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

“The 2000 election of George W. Bush as president gave Republicans what the Democrats have now, total control of the legislative and executive branches of government. When Bush came to office, federal spending was $1.788 trillion. When he left office, federal spending was $2.982 trillion.”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

2010s, American Contempt for Liberty (2015)

“I reject republicanism. At the head of races, above the elite, there is Monarchy. Not all monarchs have been good. Monarchy, however, has always been good. The individual monarch must not be confused with the institution of Monarchy, the conclusions drawn from this would be false. There can be bad priests, but this does not mean that we can draw the conclusion that the Church must be ended and God stoned to death. There are certainly weak or bad monarchs, but we cannot renounce Monarchy. The race has a line of life. A monarch is great and good, when he stays on this line; he is petty and bad, to the extent that he moves away from this racial line of life or he opposes it. There are many lines by which a monarch can be tempted. He must set them all aside and follow the line of the race. Here is the law of Monarchy.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Life , Death , God , Law

“Particularly if the Republicans nominate a more moderate candidate such as Mitt Romney, Obama will not be able to rely on partisan animosity to succeed where job approval has failed. And, given all that, he might not even run.”

Dick Morris (1947) American political commentator and consultant

2011-09-20
Obama might pull out
The Hill
http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/dick-morris/182765-obama-might-pull-out
President Barack Obama won the presidential election against Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

“Let me tell you what the facts are. Now, we had a hard time getting those facts into these debates, because they're so inconvenient for the other side. And I admire that about the Republicans: The evidence does not faze them. … They are not bothered at all by the facts. And you've got to kind of give it to them. … They know what they're for.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

Remarks at a Reception for Representative Martin T. Meehan in Lowell, Massachusetts (20 October 2000) http://www.govrecords.org/pd30oc00-statement-on-congressional-action-on-the-foreign-3.html
2000s

Time

“To befool and mislead the people, to falsify public opinion, is to pervert and destroy a republican form of government.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr. (1855–1925) American politician

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

People

“I do think we have a psychic connection, or you can say a deeper connection, with Donald Trump in a way that we simply do not have with most Republicans.”

Richard Bertrand Spencer (1978) American white supremacist

Way , Thinking

“Derangement is the signature expression of the Great Backlash, a style of conservatism that first came snarling onto the national stage in response to the partying and protests of the late sixties. While earlier forms of conservatism emphasized fiscal sobriety, the backlash mobilizes voters with explosive social issues — summoning public outrage over everything from busing to un-Christian art — which it then marries to pro-business economic polices. Cultural anger is marshaled to achieve economic ends. And it is these economic achievements — not the forgettable skirmishes of the never-ending culture wars — that are the movement’s greatest monuments. The backlash is what has made possible the international free-market consensus of recent years, with all the privatization, deregulation, and de-unionization that are its components. Backlash ensures that Republicans will continue to be returned to office even when their free-market miracles fail and their libertarian schemes don’t deliver and their "New Economy" collapses. It makes possible the police pushers’ fantasies of “globalization” and a free-trade empire that are foisted upon the rest of the world with such self-assurance. Because some artist decides to shock the hicks by dunking Jesus in urine, the entire plant must remake itself along the lines preferred by the Republican Party, U. S. A.The Great Backlash has made the laissez-faire revival possible, but this does not mean that it speak to us in the manner of the capitalists of old, invoking the divine right of money or demanding that the lowly learn their place in the great chain of being. On the contrary; the backlash imagines itself as a foe of the elite, as the voice of the unfairly persecuted, as a righteous protest of the people on history’s receiving end. That is champions today control all three branches of government matters not a whit. That is greatest beneficiaries are the wealthiest people on the plant does not give it pause.”

Thomas Frank book What's the Matter with Kansas?

Introduction: What's the Matter with America (pp. 5-6).
What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004)

Money , War , People , World

“As far as party primaries are concerned, both Republican and Democratic Party primaries are dominated by the most zealous voters, whose views may not reflect the views of most members of their own respective parties, much less the views of those who are going to vote in the November general election.
In recent times, each election year has seen each party's nominee selected - or at least subject to veto - by its most extreme wing and then forced to try to move back to the center before the general election.
This can only undermine the public's confidence in the integrity of the candidates of both parties.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

"Bipartisan Primary Blues" http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmJhYWM0ZWIxZGZmYWU5YmVmZWQ3ZTUzYzFmMzQ4ZTM=, National Review (25 March 2008).
2000s

Confidence , Time

“Do Christian Republicans not understand the fundamental ways in which an unfettered corporate capitalism betrays Christ’s ethical vision and their own economic well-being?”

Curtis White (1951) American academic

"The spirit of disobedience: an invitation to resistance"

Way , Understanding , Christ

“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]

“Convinced republican that I am, and foe of the prince who talks to plants and wants to be crowned "head of all faiths" as well as the etiolated Church of England, I find myself pierced by a pang of sympathy. Not much of a life, is it, growing old and stale with no real job except waiting for the news of Mummy's death? Some British people claim actually to "love" their rather dumpy Hanoverian ruling house. This love takes the macabre form of demanding a regular human sacrifice whereby unexceptional people are condemned to lead wholly artificial and strained existences, and then punished or humiliated when they crack up.”

Charles, Prince of Wales (1948) son of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Christopher Hitchens, Beware the In-Laws: Does Kate Middleton really want to marry into a family like this?, Slate, April. 18, 2011
About

Love , Life , Death , People

“Unless Gingrich and Dole and the Republicans say, ‘Am I inflaming a bunch of nuts?’, you know we're going to have some more events (like the Oklahoma City bombing). I am absolutely certain the harsher rhetoric of the Gingriches and the Doles … creates a climate of violence in America.”

Carl Rowan (1925–2000) American journalist

April 25, 1995 Washington Post.
Quoington Star article entitled "Has President Nixon Gone Crazy?"

“Well, remember, all that area from which the Gore family comes was solid Democrat and progressive under Roosevelt for several decades. So they just didn't become Republicans because they all wanted to be bankers. They became it because they didn't like black people, and they thought the Democrats were pushing integration too fast. And that's how the great split came about, to the shame of the whole country.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

On the American South's switch from Democrat to Republican http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=342
2000s, What I've Learned (2008), Gore Vidal's America (2009)

People , Family , Country

“I'm not going to vote. I won't vote for a Catholic and I won't vote for a damned Republican. Maybe I've said that before. My ancestors were all Catholic and not very far back. And I have reason to hate the church.
I feel a curious kinship, though, with the Middle Ages. I have been more successful in selling tales laid in that period of time, than in any other. Truth it was an epoch for strange writers. Witches and werewolves, alchemists and necromancers, haunted the brains of those strange savage people, barbaric children that they were, and the only thing which was never believed was the truth. Those sons of the old pagan tribes were wrought upon by priest and monk, and they brought all their demons from their mythology and accepted all the demons of the new creed also, turning their old gods into devils. The slight knowledge which filtered through the monastaries from the ancient sources of decayed Greece and fallen Rome, was so distorted and perverted that by the time it reached the people, it resembled some monstrous legend. And the vague minded savages further garbed it in heathen garments. Oh, a brave time, by Satan! Any smooth rogue could swindle his way through life, as he can today, but then there was pageantry and high illusion and vanity, and the beloved tinsel of glory without which life is not worth living.
I hate the devotees of great wealth but I enjoy seeing the splendor that wealth can buy. And if I were wealthy, I'd live in a place with marble walls and marble floors, lapis lazulis ceilings and cloth-of-gold and I would have silver fountains in the courts, flinging an everlasting sheen of sparkling water in the air. Soft low music should breathe forever through the rooms and slim tigerish girls should glide through on softly falling feet, serving all the wants of me and my guests; girls with white bare limbs like molten gold and soft dreamy eyes.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

From a letter to Harold Preece (received October 20, 1928)
Letters

Life , God , Hate , Children

“It is difficult to see why the most advantageous political system, for the present, would not be a democratic state with an artistocratic government, provided only the artistocracy be that of real merit, and not of artificial qualities. If this be not the real principle of the republican form of government then I must confess that I do not know what its principle is.”

John Burgess

John Burgess (1933). The Foundations of Political Science. (reprinted 1994) As cited in Ido Oren, "The Subjectivity of the 'Democratic' Peace," International Security, Vol. 20, No. 2.

“Mussolini himself, before he knew who would collect around the standards of the new Fascist Republican Party, committed himself to the realization of the original syndicalist and neo-idealist program of Fascism. His original intention was to call his new republic the Italian Socialist Republic—which nonetheless advertised itself as the vehicle of an Italian socialism, a national socialism.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

Source: The Ideology of Fascism: The Rationale of Totalitarianism, (1969), p. 307

“Libertarians love their children at least as much as the Democrats and the Republicans, probably more.”

Michael Badnarik (1954) American software engineer

An American Revolution

Love , Children

“The tired whine of 'But the Republicans are worse' will fall flat as more young Americans take charge of their future and move, with their reenergized elders, toward the Green Party and parallel civic and political movements.”

Ralph Nader (1934) American consumer rights activist and corporate critic

Crashing the Party (2002)

Future

“There towers to the sky a monument of four million pairs of human fetters taken from the arms of slaves, and I read on its little headstone this, 'Sacred to the memory of Human Slavery'. For forty years of its infamous life the Democratic Party taught that it was divine; God's institution. They defended it, they stood around it, they followed it to its grave as a mourner. But here it lies, dead by the hand of Abraham Lincoln; dead by the power of the Republican Party, dead by the justice of Almighty God. Don't camp there, young man. That is no place in which to put your young life. Come out, and come over into this camp of liberty, of order, of law, of justice, of freedom, of all that is glorious under these night stars.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1870s, An Appeal to Young Men (1879)

Life , God , Justice , Law

“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.”

Thomas Frank book What's the Matter with Kansas?

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

School , Way , Success

“Go Republican Senators, Go! Get there after waiting for 7 years. Give America great healthcare!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Tweet by @realDonaldTrump https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/890764622852173826 (27 July 2017)
2010s, 2017, July

Waiting

“Americans are intimately familiar with the image of a federal government paralyzed by the chief executive's unpopularity. Presidents Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, Bill Clinton in the early 1990s, George W. Bush after the 2006 midterm election, and perhaps even Barack Obama in the first months after the 2010 midterm election. In one case in late 1995 and early 1996, the American government was literally shut down as Republicans attempted to overpower the unpopular Clinton in a federal budget dispute. But in none of these cases did the president, though his unpopularity had clearly incumbered the functioning of the state, offer to resign. And few Americans honestly expected resignation, even at the president's least popular moment.”

Max Fisher American journalist

Max Fisher, "Why Do Japanese Prime Ministers Keep Resigning" http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/06/why-do-japanese-prime-ministers-keep-resigning/239850/ (3 June 2011), The Atlantic.

“I am emboldened by my looks to say things Republican men wouldn't.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

As quoted in TV Guide (August 1997), and Soulless: Ann Coulter and the Right-Wing Church of Hate (2006) by Susan Estrich, p. 28.
1980s-90s

Men

“I have watched these Republicans be more harsh towards Donald Trump than they’ve ever been in standing up to Barack Obama and his radical agenda, they did nothing, nothing – all these phony votes to repeal and replace ObamaCare, show votes so they can go back and keep their power and get reelected.”

Sean Hannity (1961) American television host, conservative political commentator

“I'm truly honored by your support. Together, we accomplished what nobody thought was absolutely possible and you know what that is and we're only getting started and it's going to be beautiful, remember that. Tonight we close one chapter in history and we begin another. Our campaign received more primary votes than any GOP campaign in history, no matter who it is, no matter who they are, we received more votes. This is a great feeling. That's a great feeling. This is not a testament to me but a testament to all of the people who believed real change, not Obama change, but real change is possible. You've given me the honor to lead the Republican Party to victory this fall.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Victory speech after winning New Jersey and other states Tuesday night (7 June 2016) – TIME transcript http://time.com/4360872/donald-trump-new-jersey-victory-speech-transcript/
2010s, 2016, June

People , Beauty , Feeling , History

“Donald Trump’s voice is resonating with average Americans who feel their voice has been lost by their party, I believe this will become a new Republican Party, one that we should embrace. We should be the party of working men and women, the party of America first.”

Lou Barletta (1956) American politician

Lou Barletta, an immigration hard-liner in Congress, endorses Trump https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/22/lou-barletta-an-immigration-hard-liner-in-congress-endorses-trump (March 22, 2016)

Women , Men , Feeling

“Our Republican Party platform is opposed to all methods of birth control, both preventative contraception and the morning after pill. Remember that in Texas they oppose any sex education other than abstinence until marriage. That's why our state has the highest rate of repeat teen pregnancies of the country. So they're creating a welfare dependent populace, but they also want to abolish all social welfare programs that these struggling kids will need. This will not only create unnecessarily stressful conditions for both parents and children, it will also ultimately eliminate the middle class. Our republicans want to do away with all government sponsored programs that deal with early childhood development, and they include pre-school and kindergarten in that list, but they don't stop there. They also want to abolish the Department of Education, because why would a religious organization want people to be educated? The real reason is because our secular government (which this country still is) will not permit state-funded schools to promote one religion over any other, and that is exactly what Texas republicans want to do.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Republican Theocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjNg7nQvB0 (November 4, 2012)

Marriage , Children , People , Education

“McCarthy was a Republican. The Democrats, however, have skeletons in their own closet and it's worth remembering them, too. For example, Democrat Woodrow Wilson's Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer, who was just as rabid an anti-Communist as McCarthy, did far more to repress free speech and political freedom than McCarthy ever attempted. It wasn't a Republican president who locked up thousands of loyal Americans of Japanese descent in concentration camps for years. It was Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. And it wasn't a Republican who wiretapped and snooped on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but Democrats John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, who signed the order as Attorney General.”

Bruce Bartlett (1951) American historian

Source: 2000s, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past (2008), p. xi

Freedom

“It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U. S. Senators and congress members. So, now we’ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. … At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell, to an avid contributor.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Statement on the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court, in an interview with Thom Hartmann (28 July 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDsPWmioSHg; also quoted in Jimmy Carter: U.S. Is an 'Oligarchy With Unlimited Political Bribery'" in Rolling Stone (31 July 2015) http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/videos/jimmy-carter-u-s-is-an-oligarchy-with-unlimited-political-bribery-20150731, and in "Jimmy Carter Is Correct That the U.S. Is No Longer a Democracy" by Eric Zuesse, in Huffington Post (3 August 2015) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/jimmy-carter-is-correct-t_b_7922788.html.
Post-Presidency

Money , Time , Country

“I firmly believe that the benevolent Creator designed the republican Form of Government for Man.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Statement of (14 April 1785), quoted in The Writings of Samuel Adams (1904) edited by Harry A. Cushing

“Remember how Democrats were complaining that Republicans were trying to overturn Obamacare, it was somehow unpatriotic, because it was an attack on the law of the land. This law of the land doesn’t even exist. It exists in Obama’s head. It’s whatever he thinks. He wakes up in the morning and decides what the law is gonna be.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Fox News Special Report, February 12, 2014 : panel discussion http://www.mediaite.com/tv/krauthammer-obama-now-just-%e2%80%98decides-what-the-law-is-going-to-be%e2%80%99-every-morning/ ; video clip at mediaite.com.
2010s, 2014

Law , Thinking

“He was permitted, without restriction, to speak of himself as immoral, agnostic and socialistic, so long as it was universally known that he remained pure, Presbyterian, and Republican.”

Sinclair Lewis book Arrowsmith

Arrowsmith (1925), Ch. 2

Universe

“Southern political leaders were threatening to take their states out of the Union if a Republican president was elected on a platform restricting slavery.”

James M. McPherson (1936) American historian

James M. McPhersonThis Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War (2007), Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 188
2000s

“No, I'm not a democrat or a republican. I'm just a guy who's tired of the bullshit.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

The Best Page in the Universe

Guy

“[Republicans in Hess's youth] represented the only strong anti-imperalist political position. Anti-imperialist? Republicans? Uh-huh. But Republicans were not smart enough to call it that. They let it be labeled isolationism, as though they wanted the United States to sneak off the world stage, slam the doors, and bolt the windows. The underlying Republican argument, that we should trade with everyone but not interfere with or intervene in their internal politics, was lost behind that unattractive label.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

Jeff Riggenbach, "Karl Hess and the Death of Politics," http://mises.org/library/karl-hess-and-death-politics-0 ( text http://mises.org/library/karl-hess-and-death-politics) The Libertarian Tradition (6 May 2010).

Youth , World , Strong

“KERRY: I have had conversations with leaders.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Recently?
KERRY: Yes, recently.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How recent?
KERRY: That‘s not your business. It‘s mine. Are you a Democrat, a Republican? What are you? Are you a registered Republican?
(CROSSTALK)
KERRY: Are you a Republican? You answer the question. Did you vote for George Bush? Did you vote for George Bush?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I voted for George Bush and I…
KERRY: Thank you.
(UNIDENTIFIED MALE sits while booed by crowd)”

John F. Kerry (1943) politician from the United States

March 2004 exchange
Quoted in

Question , Business

“With all the efforts now to disassociate President Bush from conservatism, I am starting to believe that conservatism itself — not the political machine, mind you, but the ideology — is heading toward that misty land-over-the-ocean where ideologies go after they've shuffled off this mortal coil. Sort of like the way post-Stalinist lefties used to say, "You can't say Communism's failed. It's just never really been tried."But as it was with Communism, so with conservatism. When all the people who call themselves conservatives get together and run the government, they're on the line for it. Conservative president. Conservative House. Conservative Senate.What we appear to be in for now is the emergence of this phantom conservatism existing out in the ether, wholly cut loose from any connection to the actual people who are universally identified as the conservatives and who claim the label for themselves.We can even go a bit beyond this though. The big claim now is that President Bush isn't a conservative because he hasn't shrunk the size of government and he's a reckless deficit spender.But let's be honest: Balanced budgets and shrinking the size of government hasn't been part of conservatism — or to be more precise, Movement Conservatism — for going on thirty years. The conservative movement and the Republican party are the movement and party of deficit spending. And neither has any claim to any real association with limited or small government. Just isn't borne out by any factual record or political agenda. Not in the Reagan presidency, the Bush presidency or the second Bush presidency. The intervening period of fiscal restraint comes under Clinton.”

Josh Marshall Talking Points Memo

Talking Points Memo (2006-06-13) http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008733.php

People , Way , Communication , Effort

“The good people of Iowa have debated issues ranging from nuclear Armageddon to universal health care. And then there’s 2016, when the top two Republican candidates in the dwindling hours before caucusgoers pick a nominee are throwing around this question: “How stupid are the people of Iowa?” It was Donald Trump who first raised the issue of Hawkeye State imbecility, in a mocking reference to a crush that Iowans had on Ben Carson last fall. And it’s the odious Ted Cruz who has been using Trump’s very words to goad Iowans into proving that they are not, in fact, so stupid as to back an ego-inflamed reality television star who makes fun of them.”

Timothy Egan (1954) American writer

How Stupid Is Iowa? (2016)

People , Health , Stupidity , Star

“Keepe pursed his lips, nodded. “We’re already in a very strong position in this country, of course. We’ve taken over all of the antigovernment militias, most of the religious groups who think of themselves as conservative, plus what’s left of the KKK and the American Nazi party, but they’re only pocket change. We now own the Republican party. Any moderates still hiding in there have been flushed out. We’ve been managing the press for over twenty years now, and the public is accustomed to our view of the world.”
Jagger paid attention. “I didn’t realize…”
“Oh, yes. People don’t want to absorb new information. They like predictability. So as long as we don’t surprise the public with the truth, we’re free to move as we like. Very shortly we won’t even have to be covert about it. And then, of course, people are sick of issues. Civil rights, human rights, women’s rights—people are tired of all that. You understand?””

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 2 (p. 52; spoken by one of the leaders of a secretive neo-fascist organization)

Women , People , Truth , World

“Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all Republicans have come up with is this slow down, stop everything, let's start over. You think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said, slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough. When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted slow down, there will be a better day to do that. The day isn't quite right. When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today. More recently, when chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut, one of the people who will go down as a chief champion of the bill before us today, said that Americans should be able to take care of their families without fear of losing their jobs, you heard the same old excuses, seven years of fighting and more than one presidential veto, it was slow down, stop everything, start over. History is repeating itself before our eyes. There are now those who don't think it is the right time to reform health care. If not now, when, madam president? But the reality for many that feel that way, it will never, never be a good time to reform health care.”

Harry Reid (1939) American politician

On the Senate floor, during a debate on health care reform, December 7, 2009
Reid Compares Health Reform Bill with Slavery, Suffrage - George's Bottom Line, abcnews.com, December 7, 2009, 2009-12-08 http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/12/reid-compares-health-reform-bill-with-slavery-suffrage.html,

Women , People , Health , Fear

“Michelle [Obama] always says, ‘When they go low, we go high.’ No. When they [Republicans] go low, we kick them.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

Eric Holder To Democrats: ‘When They Go Low, We Kick Them’, The Federalist, October 10, 2018
2010s

“In two nights you're going to have the Republican candidates here. They all support the war. They all support the president. They all supported the escalation. Each of us is trying in our own way to bring the war to an end.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Democratic Presidential Debate, Manchester, New Hampshire, June 3, 2007 http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/resources/lewinsky/timeline/
Presidential campaign (January 20, 2007 – 2008)

War , Way , Support , Night

“It is necessary, therefore, to watch, not the political opponents of the administration, but the administration itself, and to see that it keeps within the bounds of the Constitution and the laws of the land. The executive of the Union has immense power to do mischief if he sees fit to exercise that power. He may prostrate the country. Indeed this country has been already prostrated. It has already fallen from pure republicanism to a monarchy in spirit if not in name.”

William Henry Harrison (1773–1841) American general and politician, 9th President of the United States (in office in 1841)

Speech at Fort Meigs (11 June 1840). Quoted in A B Norton, The Great Revolution of 1840: Reminiscences of the Log Cabin and Hard Cider Campaign. (Mount Vernon, OH and Dallas, TX: A B Norton & Co, 1888). p.186

Law , Exercises , Country

“Sandinistas are a democratically elected government which originally led a popular revolution to overthrow a dictatorship based on slavery…
US foreign policy could be best defined as follows: kiss my arse or I'll kick your head in. It is as simple and as crude as that. It can hardly be said to be a complicated foreign policy. What is interesting about it is that it is so incredibly successful. It possesses the structures of disinformation, use of rhetoric, distortion of language, which are very persuasive, but are actually a pack of lies. It is very successful propaganda. They have the money, they have the technology, they have all the means to get away with it, and they do. I find the ignorance in this country, Britain, and certainly the US, really quite deep. It is not only the Republican Party and government in the US which are responsible for this state of affairs, but I see the Democrats as only differing by degrees. While they say "no more military aid to the Contras"… they are still referring to an innate and deeply embedded assumption that they are talking about a Marxist-Leninist totalitarian dictatorship; gangsters, thugs, instructed from Moscow.”

Harold Pinter (1930–2008) playwright from England

Quoted in an interview http://www.haroldpinter.org/politics/politics_america.shtml, conducted by Andrew Graham-Yooll, South Magazine (May 1988)

Money , Kiss , Success , Country

“Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better. or is this real?”

Megyn Kelly (1970) American reporter

Election coverage, Fox News, , to Karl Rove in response to his citing of unreported counties after Fox News declared Barack Obama had taken Ohio in the 2012 U.S. presidential election
Quoted in Felix Gillette, "Welcome to My Living Room, Thank You for Spinning" http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-06/welcome-to-my-living-room-thank-you-for-spinning, BusinessWeek.com,

Feeling

“The fact that Marc Cherry's a gay Republican means he should join the Democratic Party.”

Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) American evangelical pastor, televangelist, and conservative political commentator

Meet the Press (28 November 2004) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/politics/28cnd-talk.html?oref=login

“I have served the Government of China for many years, first the Emperor, and after that the Republican Government at Nanking. I have always tried to do my best; but I must have committed errors--- though I do not know what they were---or this misfortune would not have befallen me. I have lost face.”

Ma Shaowu (1874–1937) Chinese general

News from Tartary: A Journey from Peking to Kashmir, Peter Fleming, 1999, Northwestern University Press, Evanston Illinois, 0810160714, 327, 384, 2010-06-28 http://books.google.com/books?id=6C2aaB3f9P4C&pg=RA1-PA326&dq=ma+shao-wu+flemings&hl=en&ei=ufgXTPKWCIrMMtvMnaUL&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=%20I%20have%20served%20the%20government%20of%20china%20for%20many%20years%2C%20first%20the%20Emperor%2C%20and%20after%20that%20the%20Republican%20Government%20at%20Nanking.&f=false,

Error

“Mass immigration is swamping the GOP base. Tens of millions of immigrants who vote Democratic, once they are naturalized and registered, have come and are coming to America. History may yet record that the Immigration Act of 1965 act converted 'The Emerging Republican Majority' of Kevin Phillips' classic work into the Lost Colony of the 21st century.”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

2000s, State of Emergency (2006)

History , Nature

“[A]fter I got evicted from the Republican Party, I began reading considerably more of the works of American anarchists, thanks largely to Murray Rothbard…and I was just amazed.When I read Emma Goldman, it was as though everything I had hoped that the Republican Party would stand for suddenly came out crystallised. It was a magnificently clear statement. And another interesting things about reading Emma Goldman is that you immediately see that, consciously or not, she's the source of the best in Ayn Rand. She has the essential points that the Ayn Rand philosophy thinks, but without any of this sort of crazy solipsism that Rand is so fond of, the notion that people accomplish everything all in isolation. Emma Goldman understands that there’s a social element to even science, but she also writes that all history is a struggle of the individual against the institutions, which of course is what I’d always thought Republicans were saying, and so it goes.In other words, in the Old Right, there were a lot of statements that seemed correct, and they appeal to you emotionally, as well; it was why I was a Republican—isolationist, anti-authoritarian positions, but they’re not illuminated by anything more than statement. They just are good statements. But in the writings of the anarchists the same statements are made, but with this long illumination out of experience, analysis, comparison…it's rock-solid, and so I immediately realised that I'd been stumbling around inventing parts of a tradition that was old and thoughtful and already existed, and that's very nice to discover that—I don't think it's necessary to invent everything.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

Anarchism in America http://alexpeak.com/art/films/aia/ (15 January 1983)

People , Hope , History , Understanding

“Returning home on leave following my second year at West Point, I called on a great-uncle who had joined the Confederate Army at the age of sixteen and had fought in a number of major Civil War battles, including Gettysburg, and had been with Robert E. Lee at Appamatox. My Uncle White was the younger brother of my grandfather. He hated Yankees and Republicans, not necessarily in that order, and talked derisively about both. When I visited, he was seated in a wheel chair, in grudging acquiescence to the infirmities of age. Tobacco juice decorated his shirt and stains around a spittoon on the floor testified to the inaccuracy of his aim. Flies buzzed through screenless windows. "What are you doing with yourself, son?" Uncle White asked. I answered the old veteran with trepidation. "I'm going to that same school that Grant and Sherman went to, the Military Academy at West Point, New York."”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Uncle White was silent for what seemed like a long time. "That's all right, son," he said at last. "Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson went there too."
Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 12.

Hate , War , Age , School

“[Reconstruction was detestable] not because the Republican Party was dreaded but because the dominance of an ignorant and inferior race was justly dreaded.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

As quoted in Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism, Ronald J. Pestritto, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005, p. 45. Came from Wilson’s marginal notes on one of his manuscripts.
1920s and later

“With Donald Trump as the presumptive presidential nominee, we are witnessing a populist hijacking of one of the United States' great political parties… [R]ooted in ignorance, prejudice, fear and isolationism… This troubles me deeply as a Republican, but it troubles me even more as an American.”

Henry Paulson (1946) 74th United States Secretary of the Treasury

As quoted in CBS News http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-henry-paulson-op-ed-hillary-clinton-election-2016/ (June 2016)
Choose country over party (2016)

Fear

“No one mentioned Communism or the Hiss Case until we sat over our coffee in the living room. Mrs. Philip Jessup had just used her personal good offices to try to get me off TIME. Luce was baffled by the implacable clamor of the most enlightened people against me. "By any Marxian pattern of how classes behave," he said, "the upper class should be for you and the lower classes should be against you. But it is the upper class that is most violent against you. How do you explain that?" "You don't understand the class structure of American society," said Smetana, "or you would not ask such a question. In the United States, the working class are Democrats. The middle class are Republicans. The upper class are Communists."”

Whittaker Chambers Witness

Source: Witness (1952), p.616

People , Communication , Coffee , Understanding

“I never use the words Democrats and Republicans. It's liberals and Americans.”

James G. Watt (1938) United States Secretary of the Interior

Statement of November 1981, quoted in New York Times (10 October 1983), also quoted in Energy and Environment : The Unfinished Business (1986) by Congressional Quarterly, Inc., p. 91
1980s