Anti-Elitism Quotes

When I hear anyone talk of Culture, I reach for my revolver.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

I'm listening to America, not to the pundits.

A Vote for Davis & Bryan is a Vote Against Special Privilege. Remember Tea-Pot Dome.

George Bush ran a campaign where he bragged about being an anti-intellectual, dismissing his Harvard and Yale pedigree, pretending he was an American every day, ordinary everyman, and as a result of that, played up his fumbling speech because it signified that he was a good guy. That is deeply and profoundly anti-intellectual.

The Trump phenomenon is in large part a reaction of Middle America to attacks on its values by intellectual and academic communities. There are other reasons, but this is a significant one.

We want the government to be controlled by all the people, not by the richest 1%. That's always been the first demand. That's a simple enough message, and I think it's pretty clear now, even though much of the media has been disingenuous in its coverage. We don't want the heads of the biggest industries to make all the decisions, because they're not for the people. They're for the corporations. Power to the people!

In essence, populism is an illiberal democratic response to decades to decades of undemocratic liberal policies.

Vaclav Havel didn't want to ride around in big black cars. And he had his own car with a little red heart on it. And he loved to go out and talk to the people.

I’m not club-able, you see. I don’t like literary parties and literary gatherings and literary identities. I’d hate to join anything, however loosely.

I believe that the people want an ordinary man as President, being a little tired of supermen.

Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don't think art is elite or mysterious.

I may be controversial, but my allegiance is to people outside the Beltway.

There is a sect in this country, which extends its influence, more or less, into all the ramifications of society, that explodes all kinds of knowledge not founded on personal experience; which inculcates that ignorance is the summum bonum; that the less one reads the more one thinks, and that the less he understands, the better he can act; that education beyond the precincts of common schools is allied to aristocracy, and incompatible with natural equality

I'm so proud of being a populist!

There are people in government who don't want other people to know what they know. It's just another example of elitism. And I spit on elitism. Show me an elitist, and I'll show you a loser.

Great art is horseshit, buy tacos.

When you see a Donald Trump and a Bernie Sanders, very unconventional candidates, have considerable success, then obviously there's something there that's being tapped into; a suspicion on globalization, a desire to reign in it's excesses, a suspicion of elites and governing institutions that people feel may not be responsive to their immediate needs. And that sometimes gets wrapped up in issues of ethnic identify or religious identity or cultural identity, and that can be a volatile mix.

I don't work for the rich and powerful. I work for people!

We've elected an untested prima donna, zero, zilch, nada experience, and it's coming home to roost, clear for one and all to see, and the guy thinks he's better and smarter than everybody else, is an aristocrat, an elitist, and is hell-bent on getting even with whatever he thinks the grievances of America have been in the past. Barack Obama equals politics of grievance. He has rallied an entire nation against him, and, believe me, it's a larger number of people than you would ever know, because the media of course is not portraying these numbers accurately.

I'd been thinking I'd have to learn how to play really well, but obviously the message of punk was that you just learn three chords in a week and you're away.

I think it's good politics to beat up on big companies and rich people.

I don't want to be a VIP. I want to be an LIP, a Less Important Person.

Donald Trump said: I, Donald Trump, yes, I am going to take on the entire establishment. I'm going to take on the political establishment. I am going to take on the economic establishment. I'm going to take on the media establishment. And I think a lot of people responded positively to that message.

One thing I don't want around me is a military intellectual. I don't have to worry about you on that score.