Noam Chomsky Quotes

Richard Nixon, famously, conducted his foreign policy according to the 'madman theory': he tried to convince enemy leaders that he was irrational and volatile in an attempt to intimidate them. But this was a potentially useful approach to foreign policy only because it was an act.

The only real diplomacy ever performed by a diplomat is in deceiving their own people after their dumbness has got them into a war.

When conservatives talk to one another, pay attention: they say what they want to do, and mean it. And will do just about anything to get there - even, or especially, claiming that they don't want to do the thing they want to do, until the time is ripe, and they can do it.

There is a temptation in politics to look for simplistic slogans and to play the game in a way that looks like you're a savvy politician.

Lincoln was right about not fooling all the people all of the time. But the Republicans haven't given up trying.

I'm not into political gamesmanship.

They want to deceive their people first because now they are in a very shabby situation

Anyone would be able to be played by someone like him [Donald Trump], that's what he did, he played people.

We have to be irrational and vindictive, because that's going to frighten people. And we have to maintain this for years. And then we'll be able to carry out the actions that we want to carry out.

Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

I don't know that Donald Trump is anything more to Putin than what Lenin called a poleznye durak, a useful idiot.

...History shows that ... (people) can be deflected from their natural tendencies by artful propaganda, bogus crises, or other political trickery.

One of the most important skills for political success is the ability to make confident assertions of absurdities or lies.

Yes, ruling by fooling, is a great British art with great Irish fools to practice on.

I often quote Hitler, who said words to the effect of, "Rulers are fortunate that the people do not think." Politicians know this. Even when the public seems to be upset, the politicians know if they can put on a brave face and ride it out, they generally will.

The only reason the president insists on raising [tax] rates is because he knows it will destroy Republican unity, it will cause a complete fracture of the Republican majority in the house, it will hand him a Congress that he can then manipulate for the next two years at least because the Republicans will be neutered. ... This is entirely a political action, a way to get a surrender from the Republicans.

You have big names in Scientology running around pretending to be the nicest people, and they take the care to talk to you and look at you in the eye, but that's all part of the process. That's all part of being in the church - to be a good example, to ingratiate yourself to Hollywood so that they'll say, "Hey, I don't know why you're attacking Scientology." It's all purposeful. I did it, I know!

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all the people some of the time, which is just long enough to be president of the United States.

Germans respond well to lies. At least, they always have historically.

I think that Donald Trump, how many times during the campaign did he tell us that his plan for dealing with foreign policy was to be unpredictable? Well, there we have it.

The dull flat falsehood serves for policy, and in the cunning, truth's itself a lie.

Steve Bannon is clearly somebody who has studied not-normal politics and the Constitution and the Electoral College. He is somebody who has studied Hitler and Lenin and a lot of people who have seized power and unleashed blitzkriegs from above and created tiny cabals of power concentrated in a tiny group at the top. That's what authoritarians do. It's right out of the playbook.

People who wish to numb our caution in dealing with them by means of flattery are employing a dangerous expedient, like a sleeping draught, which, if it does not put us to sleep, keeps us all the more awake.

A lot of times in politics you have people look you in the eye and tell you what's not on their mind.

The Russian Bolsheviks have discovered that truth does not matter so long as there is reiteration. They have no difficulty whatever in countering a fact by a lie which, if repeated often enough and loudly enough, becomes accepted by the people.