A demagogue is a tyrant who owes his initial rise to the democratic support of the masses. Huey Long, Hugo Chavez, and Moqtada al-Sadr are all clear examples of this dangerous byproduct of democracy. Demagogue takes a long view of the fight to defend democracy from within, from the brutal general Cleon in ancient Athens, the demagogues who plagued the bloody French Revolution, George W. Bush's naïve democratic experiment in Iraq, and beyond. This compelling narrative weaves stories about some of history's most fascinating figures, including Adolf Hitler, Senator Joe McCarthy, and General Douglas Macarthur, and explains how humanity's urge for liberty can give rise to dark forces that threaten that very freedom. To find the solution to democracy's demagogue problem, the book delves into the stories of four great thinkers who all personally struggled with democracy--Plato, Alexis de Tocqueville, Leo Strauss, and Hannah Arendt.
Some demagogues are easy to spot: They rise to power through pandering, charisma, and prejudice. But, as professor Patricia Roberts-Miller explains, a demagogue is anyone who reduces all questions to us vs. them. Why is it dangerous?
"It is hard to imagine understanding the Trump presidency and its significance without reading this book.” —Bob Bauer, Former Chief Counsel to President Barack Obama What—and who—is a demagogue?
American Demagogue is the story of this rapid rise and equally steep fall, which would be echoed by authoritarian populists in later centuries and American demagogues yet to come.
Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mercieca, Jennifer R., author. Title: Demagogue for president: the rhetorical genius of Donald Trump /Jennifer R. Mercieca.
Ed. S. Douglas Olson with introduction and commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. The Comedies of Aristophanes. Vol. 1, Acharnians. ... Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1980. The Comedies of Aristophanes. Vol. 2, Knights.
"Through a series of case studies, Patricia Roberts-Miller argues for seeing demagoguery as a way that people participate in public discourse, not necessarily populist and not necessarily heavily emotional.
In these essays, Dr. Ray Smock, former historian of the U.S. House of Representatives, combines the urgency of breaking news with critical historical analysis that reveals, in stark contrast, the dangers posed by a leader who cannot govern ...
Chapter 4 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429431197 Focused on the ...
While demagoguery is traditionally regarded as destabilizing and dangerous, this book shows how it can also be used to advance the common good.
The Demagogue