Top 55 Populist Quotes

I’ve never really considered myself just a street artist. I consider myself a populist.

Conservative beliefs are not based on personal whims or feelings or polls but rather anchored in defensible core, time-tested positions. It’s what makes a conservative somewhat boring compared to the liberal, independent, or populist.

Our sense of humour is complementary. I’m populist; and Paul’s more sophisticated.

Folk music usually has an emphasis on the lyrics and melody. And those lyrics are usually relevant in some way. And it’s populist in scope, which is also true of Bad Religion. So it’s more meant to draw some parallels between the two. And I think even my voice and my delivery can be thought of as a little bit folky.

Pundits talk about ‘populist rage’ as a way to trivialize the anger and fear coursing through the middle class.

I think it’s always hard for people to get their head around the fact that populist, commercial films can also actually be great works of art.

Catering to populist anger with extremist proposals that are certain to fail is not a viable strategy for political success.

Trump is a populist in the same mold as the nineteenth-century Populists who gave their name to American grassroots political movements. Historians and pundits argued themselves blue in the face over whether Populists were reactionary or progressive, but they were both.

There is absolutely no point in not being a populist. What I feel emboldened to do is to take something which is a minority interest and make it accessible without dumbing it down. I’m such an enthusiast for peculiar things, things that are perhaps a bit avant-garde, and try and involve everyone.

All previous populist movements were demanding things from governments, whereas the Tea Party is saying, ‘Give us less, go away.’ That’s heartening to see.

I don’t know if I’m a populist artist, but I do try to maintain a spirit of generosity.

Koizumi was not rooted in Japan’s rightwing nationalist tradition: he was a pragmatist and a populist. Abe, in contrast, is a rightwing nationalist. Unlike Koizumi, for example, he has questioned the validity of the postwar Tokyo trials of Japan’s wartime leaders, which found many of them guilty of war crimes.

There can be an energy in a populist campaign that isn’t always in the best interest of the party.

Hindi news is much more determinedly populist and lowbrow than the English channels.

I’m a nationalist and populist.

Politicians and leaders who see the media as ‘the enemy within’ divide society into two clashing cultural camps. Populist demagogues benefit from binary oppositions.

The thing is, it’s much easier to be a rightwing populist than a leftwing one, because the left always have to explain why things are the way they are. The right can just blame the foreigners.

I come from a working class community in eastern Scotland, and I’ve always been a populist, though not a patronising populist.

I am and I will remain a populist, because those who listen to the people are doing their job, whereas the radical chic who disgust workers are no longer wanted by the people.

In the late 19th century there was a major union organization, Knights of Labor, and also a radical populist movement based on farmers. It’s hard to believe, but it was based in Texas, and it was quite radical. They wanted their own banks, their own cooperatives, their own control over sales and commerce.

Trump might have a populist message that resonates with some voters, but the man doesn’t care about any of the people he’s appealing to.

Compromise disappoints those who buy into the most ambitious and simplistic populist slogans.

Governments can’t escape from taking tough steps. One can’t be populist about it. You can’t flirt with such serious issues like security.

In retrospect, the populist panic may have been overblown. Regarding Brexit, for example, the shock exaggerated its meaning. Because it was so unexpected, it became a sensation.

Well, I think the Republican Party is the more populist party.

Simply because something is a populist movement doesn’t make it either good or bad.

Abolish the monarchy. That is my populist take.

I do not think it is a coincidence that young people gravitated toward populist voices in the French election and that the two issue positions where Donald Trump and young voters seem to agree most – global engagement and trade – are rooted in populism.

Authoritarians have always been here. But the features of a given moment make that way of thinking more or less appealing. Germany in the 1920s, when people are starving, suddenly makes ‘populist’ answers and scapegoating different groups as the source of the problem much more appealing.

Coming from Buffalo, N.Y., I recognize the distinct difference between inside-the-Beltway conservatives and lake-shore conservatives. It’s populist conservatism.

It’s a very beautiful word, populism. I’m proud to be a populist.

The lack of societal and institutional safeguards provides fertile ground for populist movements fueled by fear.

In truth, the ‘populist anger’ fueling Trump’s coalition is fundamentally different from Sanders’ ‘progressive populism.’ The superficial similarities between the two end when they talk about solutions.

Limbaugh can rightly be said to be the greatest populist expositor of conservatism in America since Reagan, and the link between the Reagan generation and the so-called Rush Babies.

Political tags – such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth – are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

I tell the truth and they call me a fascist, a racist, an ugly, dirty, nasty, xenophobic populist.

My personal political convictions are rooted in the populist political traditions of western Canada.

A willingness by politicians to say what they think the public want to hear, and a willingness by large parts of the public to believe what they are told by populist politicians, has led to a deterioration in our public discourse.

I’m anti-big power. I don’t know if that’s populist or not.

After the global financial crisis of 2008, populist uprisings had sprouted across Europe. Putin and his strategists sensed the beginnings of a larger uprising that could upend the Continent and make life uncomfortable for his geostrategic competitors.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is just perfect in ‘Veep.’ She gets to show off the spiky claws beneath her patrician finesse. The obvious way to play ‘Veep’ would be to make Louis-Dreyfus a folksy heroine, one with more common sense or populist heart than her enemies. But she isn’t one.

I think Trump had this general populist agenda but has not been particularly adept at using the levers of power in Washington.

Like the Britain of Beaverbrook and Kipling, Japan in the early twentieth century was a jingoistic nation, subduing weaker countries with the help of populist politicians and sensationalist journalism.

Populist promises to reverse every tough decision are nothing but empty rhetoric, irresponsible leadership, and bad politics. They are not the solution to Ireland’s problems.

There’s a certain irreverent, populist ‘realness’ to Donald Trump’s much-maligned Twitter account and off-the-cuff remarks to the press. His down-to-earth style is out of place in the Washington, D.C. swamp-world of uptight professional politicians, but that’s exactly what makes him so appealing to regular people.

If we had a populist president who didn’t alienate so many persuadable voters, who took full advantage of a strong economy, and who had the political cunning displayed by Modi or Benjamin Netanyahu or Viktor Orban, the liberal belief in a hidden left-of-center mandate might be exposed as a fond delusion.

The forces that have worked hard to stoke populist anger against reform are the very ones that benefit from a health system which puts profits ahead of quality care for its patients.

As with fascism, the rise of Islamic totalitarianism has partly to do with its populist appeal to the class resentments of an economically oppressed population and to anger at political subordination and humiliation.

I think the rise of progressives is the biggest storyline there is, whether it’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Kara Eastman or Randy Bryce, Richard Ojeda – real populist progressives that are willing to actually fight for the progressive message rather than the lukewarm establishment Democrats.

If I had chosen the populist course, it would have been a breach of the trust placed in me by the people.

American populism is no stranger to our political life. From the earliest anti-Federalists to William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, and George Wallace, and many in between, we’ve sampled the populist temptation, often in times of national distress and dislocation.

The rise of populist movements and the shrinking of the middle class – with all the economic pain and political turbulence that comes with that – seems to have increased the appetite of both parties for dramatic proposals.

I think there’s a far more general audience now because I’ve done more populist stuff on telly.