Elections Quotes

If you put your politicians up for sale, as the US does (alone in this among industrialized democracies), then someone will buy them--and it won’t be you; you can’t afford them.

Juan Cole

Politicians are like bad horsemen who are so preoccupied with staying in the saddle that they can’t bother about where they’re going.

Joseph Alois Schumpeter

The Nazi salute was performed by public officials in the USA from 1892 through 1942. The researcher Dr. Rex Curry asks 'What happened to the photographs and films of the American Nazi salute performed by federal, state, county, and local officials?' Those photos and films are rare because people don't want to know the truth. Public officials in the USA who preceded the German socialist (Hitler) and the Italian socialist (Mussolini) were sources for the stiff-armed salute (and robotic chanting) in those countries and other foreign countries.

Micky Barnetti

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.

Otto von Bismarck

Maybe what stopped people from voting wasn't a lack of information about the candidates or a feeling that the outcomes of races didn't matter or a sense that a trip to the polls was inconvenient. What if voting wasn't only a political act, but a social one that took place in a liminal space between the public and private that had never been well-defined to citizens? What if toying with those expectations was key to turning a person into a voter? What if elections were simply less about shaping people's opinions than changing their behaviors?

Sasha Issenberg

Every conceivable layer of the election process is completely riddled with vulnerabilities, so yes, hacking elections is easy!

James Scott

I am not red or blue. I am red, white and blue. Those are the same colors in my body (my heart, blood and veins). I am only human, and the human race is the only race in which I am an active participant - mind, body and soul.

Suzy Kassem

Voters inclined to loathe and fear elite Ivy League schools rarely make fine distinctions between Yale and Harvard. All they know is that both are full of rich, fancy, stuck-up and possibly dangerous intellectuals who never sit down to supper in their undershirt no matter how hot the weather gets.

Russell Baker

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.

George Washington

This historic general election, which showed that the British are well able to distinguish between patriotism and Toryism, brought Clement Attlee to the prime ministership. In the succeeding five years, Labor inaugurated the National Health Service, the first and boldest experiment in socialized medicine. It took into public ownership all the vital (and bankrupted) utilities of the coal, gas, electricity and railway industries. It even nibbled at the fiefdoms and baronies of private steel, air transport and trucking. It negotiated the long overdue independence of India. It did all this, in a country bled white by the World War and subject to all manner of unpopular rationing and controls, without losing a single midterm by-election (a standard not equaled by any government of any party since). And it was returned to office at the end of a crowded term.

Christopher Hitchens

Today is elections day and I am stepping out to help write a chapter that will form a part of my unborn children's history exam in the future.

Precious Kerme

Every time there's elections, we hand out cash. Usually to both sides, but this time the government is going to win for sure. The opposition is in a total mess. So we just have to pay off the government, which is good for us.

Aravind Adiga

A lie is more profitable than the truth. That is why we have elections.

Psyche Roxas-Mendoza

In other words if a man is armed, then one pretty much has to take his opinions into account. One can see how this worked at its starkest in Xenophon’s Anabasis, which tells the story of an army of Greek mercenaries who suddenly find themselves leaderless and lost in the middle of Persia. They elect new officers, and then hold a collective vote to decide what to do next. In a case like this, even if the vote was 60/40, everyone could see the balance of forces and what would happen if things actually came to blows. Every vote was, in a real sense, a conquest.

David Graeber

Typically, in politics, more than one horse is owned and managed by the same team in an election. There's always and extra candidate who will slightly mimic the views of their team's opposing horse, to cancel out that person by stealing their votes just so the main horse can win. Elections are puppet shows. Regardless of their rainbow coats and many smiles, the agenda is one and the same.

Suzy Kassem

Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster, who will get a version of it through a desiccated question, and then will submerge it in a Niagara of similar opinions, and convert them into--what else?--another piece of news. Thus we have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing.

Neil Postman

I am not for the left or the right, but for what is right over the wrong. I am not an elephant or a donkey, but a lion that stands only with Truth and my conscience.

Suzy Kassem

If you are stupid enough not to know the difference between the devil and the angel, you quickly find the devil! This is what happens to most people in democracies just after elections!

Mehmet Murat ildan

There is no such thing as a non-dangerous dictator! Like all the venomous snakes, all dictators are dangerous! Then what is the antidote? Antidote is our love for freedom and our unshakable determination on the matter of keeping this love!

Mehmet Murat ildan

There are some ignorant and immoral politicians, the more they win the elections the more their countries lose! Their victory always results in the defeat and the collapse of the whole country!

Mehmet Murat ildan

In a petty theft you steal money, gold etc.; in an electoral theft you steal the future of a country! The second crime can be committed only by the meanest people! Such a heavy crime results in a heavy price!

Mehmet Murat ildan

The only candidate I'd allow to play my music would be Bigfoot, and unless we're talking about foraging for squirrels, he's notoriously apolitical.

Greg Gutfeld

It is always possible that a stupid and a mean leader can keep winning the elections and as for the result, there is no possibility here, there is only certainty: His country will keep sinking!

Mehmet Murat ildan

We must tell the world that even though we elected a bigot, bigotry will not prevail.

DaShanne Stokes

The point is that television does not reveal who the best man is. In fact, television makes impossible the determination of who is better than whom, if we mean by 'better' such things as more capable in negotiation, more imaginative in executive skill, more knowledgeable about international affairs, more understanding of the interrelations of economic systems, and so on. The reason has, almost entirely, to do with 'image.' But not because politicians are preoccupied with presenting themselves in the best possible light. After all, who isn't? It is a rare and deeply disturbed person who does not wish to project a favorable image. But television gives image a bad name. For on television the politician does not so much offer the audience an image of himself, as offer himself as an image of the audience. And therein lies one of the most powerful influences of the television commercial on political discourse.

Neil Postman

In the United States […] the two main business-dominated parties, with the support of the corporate community, have refused to reform laws that make it virtually impossible to create new political parties (that might appeal to non-business interests) and let them be effective. Although there is marked and frequently observed dissatisfaction with the Republicans and Democrats, electoral politics is one area where notions of competitions and free choice have little meaning. In some respects the caliber of debate and choice in neoliberal elections tends to be closer to that of the one-party communist state than that of a genuine democracy.

Robert W. McChesney

The sheriff listened uneasily to a sound, very uncommon at elections, of the populace expressing an opinion contrary to that of the lord of the soil.

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

What happens if fully rational politicians compete for the support of irrational voters — specifically, voters with irrational beliefs about the effects of various policies? It is a recipe for mendacity.

Bryan Caplan

As a Republic governed through the utilization of a democratic process, elections are necessary in order to give every United States citizen a voice in the governing of this great nation.

Byron Goines

I think it is dangerous to confuse the idea of democracy with elections. Just because you have elections doesn't mean you're a democratic country. They're a very vitally important part of a democracy. But there are other things that ought to function as checks and balances. If elections are the only thing that matter, then people are going to resort to anything to win that election.

Arundhati Roy

Civic duty? Perhaps it would be a little naive to try to coerce me into voting. I assure you my basic standards of healthy living are very different from yours, which is the reason I do not vote. You should note that, as nonsensical a scenario, if forced to choose I would most definitely rather live in a failing, Christ-honoring, God-fearing nation than a flourishing one that mocks said Creator. Beware of my personal ambitions.

Criss Jami

You gotta remember the smartest thing the Congress did was to limit the voters in this country. Out of 3 1/2 to 4 million people, 200,000 voted. And that was true for a helluva long time, and the republic would have never survived if all the dummies had voted along with the intelligent people.

Richard Nixon

I’d watched the election of Barack Obama with them, in Harlem: the celebration had spilled out onto the streets and erupted into dancing, outdoor champagne-drinking, euphoria. This [the 1/21/17 Women's March on Washington, DC] was different. It was like laughter at a funeral—what else can you do but hold on to who you are and who you love? What can you do but try to stay sane and fight like hell for what life is all about?

Sarah Larson

A totally befuddled voter may look at a Vote for McGovern sign and do just that.

Hunter S. Thompson

The changes that take place when liberal Democrats replace not so liberal or compassionate Republicans (or Democrats) are merely cosmetic.

David T. Dellinger

In a democracy, someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.

Thucydides

When widely followed public figures feel free to say anything, without any fact-checking, it becomes impossible for a democracy to think intelligently about big issues.

Thomas L. Friedman

Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.

Abraham Lincoln

A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

Theodore Roosevelt

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

Abraham Lincoln

The law is the anchor of our feelings. If the law holds our feelings well, it directs our feelings well. If however, the laws fails to hold our feelings well, our feelings become free enough for us to do what we feel freely

Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

It isn't a coincidence that the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat happened after September 11. Gujarat is also one place where the toxic waste of the World Trade Center is being dumped right now. This waste is being dumped in Gujarat, and then taken of to Ludhiana and places like that to be recycled. I think it's quite a metaphor. The demonization of Muslims has also been given legitimacy by the world's superpower, by the emperor himself. We are at a stage where democracy - this corrupted, scandalous version of democracy - is the problem. So much of what politicians do is with an eye on elections. Wars are fought as election campaigns. In India, Muslims are killed as part of election campaigns. In 1984, after the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi, the Congress Party won, hands down. We must ask ourselves very serious questions about this particular brand of democracy.

Arundhati Roy

We don’t vote for people because they are the exact embodiment of our values, but because they are likely to be the most responsive to them.

Charles M. Blow

New Rule: Conservatives have to stop rolling their eyes every time they hear the word "France." Like just calling something French is the ultimate argument winner. As if to say, "What can you say about a country that was too stupid to get on board with our wonderfully conceived and brilliantly executed war in Iraq?" And yet an American politician could not survive if he uttered the simple, true statement: "France has a better health-care system than we do, and we should steal it." Because here, simply dismissing an idea as French passes for an argument. John Kerry? Couldn't vote for him--he looked French. Yeah, as a opposed to the other guy, who just looked stupid.Last week, France had an election, and people over there approach an election differently. They vote. Eighty-five percent turned out. You couldn't get eighty-five percent of Americans to get off the couch if there was an election between tits and bigger tits and they were giving out free samples.Maybe the high turnout has something to do with the fact that the French candidates are never asked where they stand on evolution, prayer in school, abortion, stem cell research, or gay marriage. And if the candidate knows about a character in a book other than Jesus, it's not a drawback. The electorate doesn't vote for the guy they want to have a croissant with. Nor do they care about private lives. In the current race, Madame Royal has four kids, but she never got married. And she's a socialist. In America, if a Democrat even thinks you're calling him "liberal," he grabs an orange vest and a rifle and heads into the woods to kill some

Bill Maher

The sleep of reason encourages the elections.

Janusz Korwin-Mikke

Young people today seem to be coming around to the idea it really doesn’t matter which politician or political party you vote for; and they’re catching on that it doesn’t even matter if you don’t vote because they have realized modern elections are just a way for the 1% to appease the 99% – a way to keep the masses in line by making them believe they’ve had their say, thereby perpetuating the lie that democracy continues.

James Morcan

Are we Pakistanis, children of a lesser God? Is there one law for the west and one for us? Is our democracy supposed to be only democracy if you give us a no objection certificate?

Imran Khan

I mean what does a democracy depend on? A democracy depends on the individual voter making an intelligent and rational choice for what he regards as his enlightened self-interest, in any given circumstance.

Aldous Huxley

One of the most unique aspects among many about the USA is that our transitions of 'power' have almost always been peaceful. This is very unique in all of history and in the world today".

R. Alan Woods

...they say if you don't vote, you get the government you deserve, and if you do, you never get the results you expected.

E.A. Bucchianeri

You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government.

Guy de Maupassant

The challenge has always been that "good people" don't know how to win elections

Fela Durotoye

Because of the power that we have given money: The government would rather have taxpayers who do not vote, than voters who do not pay tax.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

H.L. Mencken

My father once told me that American democracy is a people’s democracy at heart, and that it therefore can be as great as the American people, or as fallible. It depends on all of us. But our system is more fragile than we know. To sustain it, we must always cherish the ideals on which it was founded, remain vigilant against the dark forces that threaten it, and actively engage in the process of making it work.

George Takei

In a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.

Matt Taibbi

To vastly improve your country and truly make it great again, start by choosing a better leader. Do not let the media or the establishment make you pick from the people they choose, but instead choose from those they do not pick.

Suzy Kassem

Authority confined in you does not make you a leader. It is the authority created by you that makes you influence people with your purpose.

Israelmore Ayivor

Ballot papers do not define leaders. Leadership is defined by conviction, vision, passion and inspiration.

Israelmore Ayivor

A true democratic society is supposed to serve its people, not big businesses. The welfare of its citizens, not corporate pockets. But when you have corporations buying the seats of our political leaders, who do you think they will serve?

Suzy Kassem

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