It’s interesting how words change their meaning with the passage of time. Just so we are all talking about the same thing, here’s what Merriam-Webster has to say about the word demagogue: A leader who makes use of popular prejudices, false claims, and promises, to gain power.
That seems pretty clear, but there is an additional comment for those who are just learning English: A political leader who tries to gain support by making false claims, promises, and using arguments based on emotion rather than reason.
At the bottom of the online citation is a picture of a candidate (whose name shall not be mentioned) along with a notation that the peak day of demagogue being looked up was July 15, 2015.
Either definition describes the current usage; it is now more apropos than when it was used in depicting George Wallace in the 1968 Presidential campaign. He was a single-issue demagogue. Some in the current crop leave no topic unscathed by their inflammatory rhetoric.
It has not always been so. Here’s an editor’s note from Merriam-Webster: When the ancient Greeks used d?mag?gos (from d?mos, meaning “people,” and agein, “to lead”) they meant someone good – a leader who used outstanding oratorical skills to further the interests of the common people. Mid-17th-century writers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Dryden-and, later, Jonathan Swift-employed the English word that way. But, at the same time, the word took a negative turn, coming to suggest one who uses powers of persuasion to sway and mislead. “A plausible, insignificant word, in the mouth of an expert demagogue, is a dangerous and a dreadful weapon,” declared Robert South, known for his sermons, in 1716.
Interesting that the good Rev. South brought today’s meaning to his congregation’s attention 300 years ago.
Almost everyone has been amazed at the power demagoguery has demonstrated in the last eight months. Surely, clear-thinking citizens have thought rationality will eventually rule the day. So far that has not been the case.
Why is that so? Not since World War II has the United States been faced with such panoply of problems. At least back then we knew exactly who the enemies were and what had to be done to defeat them. It was far from easy and reading history from that time all the difficulties in coordinating the allied forces have faded in the remembrances of unlikely victories and ultimate triumph.
Today the issues are much more complex and nebulous. Civil unrest and questionable justice for all are rampant, the widening gap between the haves and have nots, the Middle East is in turmoil in which we had a pivotal part in unleashing, ISIL is a formidable foe who is difficult to define and impossible to understand, the memory of the 2008 financial meltdown is still fresh in our memory, North Korea seems to be teetering on the borders of insanity, and the European Union is tottering on the brink of dissolution partly because of the massive emigration from Syria.
The stage is set for demagoguery and there seem to be a couple of actors more than willing to strut across it. When fear, either imagined or real, is abroad then the time is rife to have a feeding frenzy on the easy meal of misinformation, innuendo, and outright lies.
While much of the nation stands by in open-mouthed disbelief, millions have been sucked down by the undertow of untruths, distortions, arrogant bluster, and narrow beliefs that betray the vast ignorance from which they spring.
There have been glimmers of hope the demagogues will finally take one step too far and their followers will awaken. But it hasn’t happened yet. Unless it does, and it will not be defined by party lines, then we may have to broaden the definition of demagoguery to include the dissolution of democracy.
Hayden Hollingsworth
