Quotes About Authoritarianism

Marx's dream of a workers' paradise had degenerated into an Orwellian nightmare; conformity was the highest good, informants kept watch on every block, whole countries lived behind barbed wire, and governments insisted that down was up and black was white.

President Trump's eyes light up when strongmen steamroll opposition, brush aside legal constraints, ignore criticism, and do whatever it takes to get their way.

Fascist is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have.

a Fascist who launches his career by being voted into office will have a claim to legitimacy that others do not.

Historian Robert Paxton begins one of his books by asserting: "Fascism was the major political innovation of the twentieth century, and the source of much of its pain.

the Fascist game plan: a single party, speaking with one voice, controlling every state institution, claiming to represent all people, and labeling the entire sham a triumph of the popular will.

Among those welcoming Fascism and shouting "Viva Mussolini" that day were two hundred Jews.

The answer matters because, although nature abhors a vacuum, Fascism welcomes one.

Maduro is burly and has a trim mustache. What he doesn't have is enough wit, charm, or oil riches to fill the boots of Chávez

Every step in the direction of Fascism—every plucked feather—causes damage to individuals and to society; each makes the next step shorter. To hold the line, we must recognize that despots rarely reveal their intentions and that leaders who begin well frequently become more authoritarian the longer they hold power.

Speaking in town squares, beer halls, and circus tents, Hitler employed over and over again the same action verbs—smash, destroy, annihilate, kill. In a typical address, he would shout himself into a lather of arm-flailing, screaming fury at the nation's enemies, only to grow abruptly calm as he painted a word picture of what a new era of German ascendance might look like.

Asked by a reporter to summarize his program, Mussolini replied, "It is to break the bones of the democrats … and the sooner the better.

His goal was to secure approval of a law authorizing him to ignore the constitution, bypass the Reichstag, and govern by decree. He

To hold the line, we must recognize that despots rarely reveal their intentions and that leaders who begin well frequently become more authoritarian the longer they hold power.

To my mind, a Fascist is someone who identifies strongly with and claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use whatever means are necessary—including violence—to achieve his or her goals. In that conception, a Fascist will likely be a tyrant, but a tyrant need not be a Fascist.

He was neutral on prayer, skeptical of free speech, sympathetic to tax protestors, indifferent to Indians, afraid of blacks, tough on pornographers, soft on criminals, and fairly consistent in his protection of the environment

why is there no right-wing Daily Show? And we would glibly, pridefully answer that the conservative movement could not be funny because it was, by nature, authoritarian, prudish, untruthful, and dull.

Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.

I really dread serious people. Especially serious, dogmatic people. I regard them as sort of what Reich called the emotional plague. I regard them as very dangerous.

Prison is a Socialist paradise where equality prevails, everything is supplied, and competition is eliminated.

Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society.

The military is very constitutionalist, and I have my faith in them and in the cooler heads of the people.

I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.

Modern Western empires are different from empires of old as well as the Soviet empire of yesterday in one important respect: they combine a democratic political system at home with despotism abroad. Even in the German case, as Sheldon Wolin reminds us, Nazi terror was not applied to the population generally. So long as democracy is a living reality at home, democratic empires are potentially self-correcting.