The demagogue takes the stage. Freedom weeps.
He is a character as old as time.
The bane of democracies.
For it is democracies which empower the people.
And it is the demagogue who manipulates the people for his own selfish purposes.
The vaccine which prevents a demagogue from killing its host body politic is truth.
But, therein lies the rub.
To know the truth requires a desire to search for it.
An eagerness to learn.
A willingness to be persuaded by facts, even to the point of changing one’s mind.
We point the finger at the demagogue and blame him for civil strife.
But the fault lies within us, the people unwilling to lift a finger to save ourselves.
Willingly blind.
Happily ignorant.
This is an old story.
We are living it in live time.
Below, some thoughts from the past.
From James Fenimore Cooper, American writer of the nineteenth century, in 1838.
“A demagogue… is ‘a leader of the rabble.’
“The peculiar office of a demagogue is to advance his own interests, by affecting a deep devotion to the interests of the people.
“[T]he people are flattered, in order to be led.
From Aristophanes, the Greek playwright, two millennia ago.
“A demagogue must be neither an educated nor an honest man;
“he must be ignorant and a rogue.”
And from Josiah Gilbert Holland, American poet, 1872.
“GOD, give us men!
A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
”Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office can not buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
”Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in private thinking;
”For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo!
“Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps.”
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I’ll see you tomorrow.
— Brenda
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