Bret Stephens Quotes
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When it comes to trade, when it comes to standing up to countries like North Korea, when it comes to standing up to guys like Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump is not a conservative.
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Institutionalized racism is an imaginary enemy.
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Donald Trump is a demagogue. Period. The fervor of his crowds recalls Nasser's Egypt. His convictions are illiberal. His manners are disgusting. His temper is frightening.
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Censoriously asserting one's moral superiority and treating skeptics as imbeciles and deplorables wins few converts.
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Yes, Obama took over two wars from Bush - just as President Richard Nixon inherited Vietnam from President Lyndon Johnson and President Dwight Eisenhower inherited Korea from President Harry Truman. But at least the war in Iraq was all but won by 2009, thanks largely to the very surge Obama had opposed as a senator.
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In every generation, there's a strong tendency for everyone to think like everyone else.
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For the anti-Semite, the problems of the world can invariably be ascribed to the Jews; for the Communist, to the capitalists.
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The hater always suffers more than the object of his hatred.
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Do I think police chiefs, many of which are African-American or Hispanic, wake up and say, 'Let's systemically oppress African-American communities?' No, I don't. Are there instances in which that happens? I'm sure there are.
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I write my columns pretty carefully.
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I grew up with parents who liked the old line that they didn't leave the Democratic Party - the Democratic Party left them.
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In place of presidential addresses, stump speeches, or town halls, we have Trump's demagogic mass rallies. In place of the usual jousting between the administration and the press, we have a president who fantasizes on Twitter about physically assaulting CNN.
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The American birthright belongs, potentially, to everyone. This is unprecedented. Other countries accept migrants on the basis of economic necessity or as a humanitarian gesture. Only in America is it the direct consequence of our foundational ideals.
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This is the standard line of the Trump side of the party, that us who oppose him are just a bunch of elites who live in the Acela corridor in this bubble of unimaginable wealth. I wish I had been born into an extremely wealthy New York real estate family and been given multimillion dollar loans to get my start in life.
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Nearly everyone I know seems to have a well-developed theory as to why this country is past redemption, or almost, and every theory seems almost right.
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Democrats should have learned in 2016 that what counts in American politics is location, not turnout.
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Of course ABC and its parent company Disney were right to cancel the sitcom 'Roseanne' after its eponymous star, Roseanne Barr, wrote a racist tweet.
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People want leaders. Not ideologues. Not people whose life experiences have been so narrow that they've been able to maintain the purity of their youthful ideals. Not people whose principal contact with political life comes in the form of speeches and sound bites rather than decisions and responsibilities.
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Movements that hector and punish rather than educate and reform have a way of inviting derision and reaction.
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The more Mr. Trump traduces the old established lines of decency, the more he affirms his supporters' most shameless ideological instincts.
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Humanitarianism is commendable, but not when you're demanding that others share the burdens and expense.
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Among the events of John McCain's five-and-a-half years of imprisonment and torture in North Vietnam, probably the most heroic, and surely the most celebrated, was his refusal to accept an early release from his captors.
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If a public figure tells a whopping lie once in his life, it'll haunt him into his grave. If he lies morning, noon and night, it will become almost impossible to remember any one particular lie.
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The most interesting conversation is not about why Donald Trump lies. Many public figures lie, and he's only a severe example of a common type. The interesting conversation concerns how we come to accept those lies.