Toxic Politics Quotes

I believe in working together to solve the problems we've got. And we need to get rid of the venom in the political atmosphere in D.C. It's a poisonous atmosphere.

I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any votes.

Nixon represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise.

Hatred, anger, and violence can destroy us: the politics of polarization is dangerous.

I denounced Donald Trump for not denouncing the kind of vitriol, the kind of violence that he has perpetrated with his angry rhetoric. And he knows exactly what he's doing. This is not the Donald Trump who denounced David Duke in 1991. This is a guy who's now soaking up this hate and his spilling it back out.

Faced with global challenges, politicians like Donald Trump have played on the fears and concerns of the American people with divisive, hateful rhetoric and proposals.

The trouble with modern democracy is that men do not approach to leadership until they have lost the desire to lead anyone.

I think we have to stop using the expression "alt-right." It's ridiculous. It's racist, fascist, nationalist.

That is what I want to make clear today. A man with a long history of racial discrimination, who traffics in dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far, dark reaches of the Internet, should never run our government or command our military.

Putin himself is a character out of fiction, an uber-macho former Soviet thug running a massive, expansionist kleptocracy. The man stages photographs riding horses barechested and hunting tigers. His enemies find themselves on the wrong end of radioactive poisoning.

We're going to keep building the party until we're hunting Democrats with dogs.

Our nation stands at a fork in the political road. In one direction lies a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland. America is something different.

How could such a destructive man [referring to Bush] be so popular with the American people?... Not only is he poisoning our air and water - he's poisoning our political system as well.

I think America has the best assholes in the world. I defy the Belgians or the Japanese to produce something like a Donald Trump.

Members walk into the chamber full of hatred. They believe the worst lies about the other side. Two senators stopped by my office just a few hours ago. Why? They had a plot to nail somebody on the other side. That's what Congress has come to.

Unfortunately there are too many examples of members of Congress and other elected officials using language, referring to your opponents in ways that you would have never done before, ascribing the worst motives to your opponents, and assuming that other Americans are the enemies. And that's just not the way it used to be. And I don't think it can be that way in the future.

When a president, as Trump does, demonises opponents as an un-American mob trying to destroy the country, it is not a lunatic who tries to harm them, it is a patriot.

Politics is not longer about argument of discussions it is about trying to put your opponents into the box of the untouchables.

Extremism, under whatever guise, fanaticism of whatever kind, factionalism of whatever persuasion would be faithful, poisonous plants and the soil of our country which will not be allowed to flourish.

Donald Trump is not stupid. He knows exactly what he's saying. And he's just saying out there - I mean, forget about Muslims. He said I could go down on Fifth Avenue in New York and shoot someone in the face and people - and the voters will have no problem with it. This transcends any kind of religion and any kind of belief. This is actually an offense and attack on human values. He's just saying out there I will shoot people in the face and people wouldn't care.

You can't deal with rattlesnakes. You can't deal with communist governments.

Our politics are being hijacked by a comparatively small number of people who seek to dominate the debate by screaming the loudest. They see the world as an urgent struggle between true believers and nonbelievers. They attempt to impose strict litmus tests and insist on conformity. They demonize dissent and consider all political opponents their enemies. Fear is their favourite tactic as they try to divide and conquer

The Senate has been debased to the level of a forum of hate and character assassination sheltered by the shield of congressional immunity.

Elected officials need to stop with the name calling and hateful statements.

The impeachment process [is] just one more pathogen in the medical chest of toxic politics.