What We Talk About When We Talk About ‘Demagogues’
In Greece, the demagogue was not just a leader of people, but a leader who led, specifically, by bullying/cajoling/converting charisma into influence. He was a populist who appealed, in particular, to the lower classes. As Aristotle wrote of Cleon, a tanner, “He was the first who shouted on the public platform, who used abusive language and who spoke with his cloak girt around him, while all the others used to speak in proper dress and manner.”
.. “Democracy—and any other system with an element of democracy—intrinsically creates an opening for a demagogue.”
.. one person’s threat to democracy is another person’s populist hero.
.. He is a human distillation of the maxim that democracy “is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.” In all that, he may well represent just what Aristotle feared: democracy, feeding on itself. And thereby destroying itself.