Bret Stephens Quotes
The Arab world's problems are a problem of the Arab mind, and the name for that problem is anti-Semitism.
Stephens, Bret. Opinion column. The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 2012.
This quotation was used by the Lyndon B. Johnson 1964 Campaign as: “We represent the majority of the people in Alabama who hate niggerism, Catholicism, Judaism, and all the isms of the whole world.” So said Robert Creel of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. He also said, “I like Barry Goldwater. He needs our help.” The second statement was made at a different time.
Ford was a notorious anti-Semite.
Througout political history, including in America, opportunistic, unscruplous politicians have appealed to the prejudices and hates of subsets of the population for others (usually minorities) to get elected or obtain support for legislation and administrative action. In America this has been an element of all populist movements—an enemy. This quote is particularly enlightening in that it shows that the real need is to have a minority to focus the public against—which one is not as material as the fact that there is one.
Vladimir Lenin. Despite Lenin’s abhorrence of anti-Semitism, there were any other Russians for whom it was normal. After Lenin’s death, Stalin and his henchmen used anti-Semitism to divert attention from the Communist Party’s failure to meet its economic and other goals.
Bret Louis Stephens is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American conservative journalist, editor, and columnist. He began working as an opinion columnist for The New York Times in April 2017 and as a senior contributor to NBC News in June 2017.
