How to Recognize a Demagogue and Why You Should Never Support One

I started reading The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Someone at church quoted this talk by President Benson where he asks if we have read the Constitution and The Federalist Papers. So I started reading it, and although I am only a short way into it, I have been very impressed by it. It is still very pertinent to today, and I too think everyone should read it.

This part really struck me, and I have been pondering about it:

"A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants."

Basically it says that history shows us that we should beware of demagogues, because they are the most likely to introduce despotism and become tyrants.

So what exactly is a demagogue? I read a few definitions, but the article in Wikipedia really floored me. It gives historical examples and also outlines the methods that demagogues use. So the rest of this post are excerpts from the Wikipedia article. Please read it, or at least read the highlighted parts.

Demagogue 
A demagogue or rabble-rouser is a leader in a democracy who gains popularity by exploiting prejudice and ignorance among the common people, whipping up the passions of the crowd and shutting down reasoned deliberation. Demagogues have usually advocated immediate, violent action to address a national crisis while accusing moderate and thoughtful opponents of weakness or disloyalty. Demagogues violate established rules of political conduct; most who were elected to high office changed their democracy into some form of dictatorship.

They exploit a fundamental weakness in democracy: because ultimate power is held by the people, nothing stops the people from giving that power to someone who appeals to the lowest common denominator of a large segment of the population.

Demagogues appealed directly to the emotions of the poor and uninformed, pursuing power, telling lies to stir up hysteria, exploiting crises to intensify popular support for their calls to immediate action and increased authority, and accusing moderate opponents of weakness or disloyalty to the nation. While many politicians in a democracy make occasional small sacrifices of truth, subtlety, or long-term concerns to maintain popular support, demagogues do these things relentlessly and without self-restraint.

Throughout its history, people have often used the word demagogue carelessly, to disparage any leader whom the speaker thinks manipulative, pernicious, or bigoted. What distinguishes a demagogue is how he or she gains or holds democratic power: by exciting the passions of the lower classes and less-educated people in a democracy toward rash or violent action, breaking established democratic institutions such as the rule of law. The central feature of the practice of demagoguery is persuasion by means of passion, shutting down reasoned deliberation and consideration of alternatives. Demagogues "pander to passion, prejudice, bigotry, and ignorance, rather than reason."

Demagogues have arisen in democracies from Athens to the present day. Often considered the first demagogue, Cleon of Athens is remembered mainly for the brutality of his rule and his near destruction of Athenian democracy, made possible by his "common-man" appeal to disregard the moderate customs of the aristocratic elite. Modern demagogues include Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and Joseph McCarthy.

Democracies are instituted to ensure freedom for all and popular control over government authority; demagogues turn power deriving from popular support into a force that undermines the very freedoms and rule of law that democracies are made to protect. The Greek historian Polybius thought that democracies are inevitably undone by demagogues. He said that every democracy eventually decays into "a government of violence and the strong hand," leading to "tumultuous assemblies, massacres, banishments."

Famous Demagogues:

Cleon of Athens:
The Athenian leader Cleon is known as a notorious demagogue. Cleon persuaded the Athenians to slaughter not just the Mytilenean prisoners, but every man in the city, and to sell their wives and children as slaves. The Athenians rescinded the resolution the following day when they came to their senses. After Athens had completely defeated the Peloponnesian fleet and Sparta could only beg for peace on almost any terms, Cleon persuaded the Athenians to reject the peace offer. He taunted the Athenian generals over their failure to bring the war in Sphacteria to a rapid close, accusing them of cowardice, and declared that he could finish the job himself in twenty days, despite having no military knowledge.

Adolf Hitler:
The most famous demagogue of modern times, Adolf Hitler first attempted to overthrow the German government not with popular support but by force in a failed putsch in 1923. While in prison, Hitler chose a new strategy: to overthrow the government democratically, by cultivating a mass movement. While Hitler was in prison, the Nazi party vote had fallen to one million, and it continued to fall after Hitler was released in 1924 and began rejuvenating the party. For the next several years, Hitler and the Nazi party were generally regarded as a laughingstock in Germany, no longer taken seriously as a threat to the country.

In 1929, with the start of the Great Depression, Hitler's populism started to become effective. Hitler updated the Nazi party's platform to exploit the economic distress of ordinary Germans: repudiating the Versailles Treaty, promising to eliminate corruption, and pledging to provide every German with a job. By 1932, the Nazi party had democratic control of Parliament and Hitler was appointed Chancellor. Hitler then staged the Reichstag fire, which he used as a pretense to arrest his political opponents and consolidate his control of the army. Within a few years, exploiting democratic support of the masses, Hitler took Germany from a democracy to a total dictatorship.

The Methods of Demagogues

Scapegoating
The most common demagogic technique is scapegoating: blaming the in-group's troubles on an out-group, usually of a different race, religion, or social class. For example, Hitler famously blamed Germany's troubles during the Great Depression on Jews. Joe McCarthy claimed that all of America's problems resulted from "communist subversion." Denis Kearney blamed all the problems of laborers in California on Chinese immigrants.

Fearmongering:
Many demagogues have risen to power by evoking fear in their audiences, to stir them to action and prevent deliberation. Fear of rape, for example, is easily evoked. "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman's rhetoric was most vivid when he was describing imaginary scenes in which white women were raped by black men lurking by the side of the road. He depicted black men as having an innate "character weakness" consisting of a fondness for raping white women.[25] Tillman was elected governor of South Carolina in 1890, and elected senator repeatedly from 1895–1918.

Lying:
While any politician needs to point out dangers to the people and criticize opponents' policies, demagogues choose their words for their effect on their audience's emotions, usually without regard for factual truth or the real severity of the danger.Some demagogues are opportunistic, monitoring the people and saying whatever currently will generate the most "heat".

Emotional oratory and personal magnetism:
Many demagogues have demonstrated remarkable skill at moving audiences to great emotional depths and heights during a speech.  Hitler usually began his speeches by speaking slowly, in a low, resonant voice, telling of his life in poverty after serving in World War I, suffering in the chaos and humiliation of postwar Germany, resolving to reawaken the Fatherland. Gradually he would escalate the tone and tempo of his speech, ending in a climax in which he shrieked his hatred of Bolsheviks, Jews, Czechs, Poles, or whatever group he currently perceived as standing in his way—mocking them, ridiculing them, insulting them, threatening them with destruction. Normally reasonable people became caught up in the peculiar rapport that Hitler established with his audience, believing even the most obvious lies and nonsense while under his spell. Hitler was not born with these vocal and oratorical skills; he acquired them through long and deliberate practice. Demagogic oratory distracts, entertains, and enthralls, steering followers' attention away from the demagogue's usual history of lies, abuses of power, and broken promises.

Attacking the news media:
Since information from the press can undermine a demagogue's spell over his or her followers, modern demagogues have often attacked it intemperately, calling for violence against newspapers who opposed them, claiming that the press was secretly in the service of moneyed interests or foreign powers, or claiming that leading newspapers were simply personally out to get them.

Violence and physical intimidation:
Demagogues have often encouraged their supporters to violently intimidate opponents, both to solidify loyalty among their supporters and to discourage or physically prevent people from speaking out or voting against them. Hitler intentionally provoked hecklers at his rallies so that his supporters would become enraged by their remarks and assault them.

Personal insults and ridicule:
Many demagogues have found that ridiculing or insulting opponents is a simple way to shut down reasoned deliberation of competing ideas, especially with an unsophisticated audience. "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, for example, was a master of the personal insult. He got his nickname from a speech in which he called President Grover Cleveland "an old bag of beef" and resolved to bring a pitchfork to Washington to "poke him in his old fat ribs."

A common demagogic technique is to pin an insulting epithet on an opponent, by saying it repeatedly, in speech after speech, when saying the opponent's name or in place of it. For example, James Curley referred to Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., his Republican opponent for Senator, as "Little Boy Blue". William Hale Thompson called Anton Cermak, his opponent for mayor of Chicago, "Tony Baloney". The use of epithets and other humorous invective diverts followers' attention from soberly considering how to address the important public issues of the time, scoring easy laughs instead.

Gross oversimplification:
Scapegoating, described above, is one form of gross oversimplification: treating a complex problem, which requires patient reasoning and analysis to sort out, as if it results from one simple cause or can be solved by one simple cure. For example, Huey Long claimed that all of the U.S.'s economic problems could be solved just by "sharing the wealth". Hitler claimed that Germany had lost World War I only because of a "Stab in the Back".

Accusing opponents of weakness and disloyalty:
Cleon, like many demagogues that came after him, constantly advocated brutality in order to demonstrate strength, and argued that compassion was a sign of weakness that would only be exploited by enemies. At the Mytilinean Debate over whether to recall the ships he had sent the previous day to slaughter and enslave the entire population of Mytilene, he opposed the very idea of debate, characterizing it as an idle, weak, intellectual pleasure. Distracting from his lack of evidence for his claims, Joe McCarthy persistently insinuated that anyone who opposed him was a communist sympathizer.