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What is another word for demagogues?

Pronunciation: [dˈɛmɐɡˌɒɡz] (IPA)

Demagogues are individuals who use their charisma and rhetorical skills to manipulate people for their own gain. There are numerous synonyms for this word, including charlatan, con artist, fraud, manipulator, opportunist, and trickster. These individuals are often viewed as dangerous and untrustworthy, and they often prey on the fears and insecurities of others to advance their own agendas. Additionally, demagogues can be seen as divisive figures, stirring up discontent and creating conflict where none existed before. As such, it is important to be aware of the tactics and strategies that these individuals may use, in order to avoid falling victim to their persuasive charms.
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What are the hypernyms for Demagogues?

A hypernym is a word with a broad meaning that encompasses more specific words called hyponyms.

Usage examples for Demagogues

Whatever may be said of English mobs and English demagogues, I have never met with a people more open to reason, more considerate in their tempers, more tractable by argument in the roughest times, than the English.
"Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists"
Washington Irving
When two national bureaus study, learn, and report, newspapers will print their stories on the first page, magazines will herald the conclusions, physicians will open their minds to new truths, state health secretaries will carry on the propaganda, demagogues and quacks will become less certain of their short-cut remedies, and everybody will be made to think.
"Civics and Health"
William H. Allen
It remains to be seen how long voters with American pedigrees will be influenced by demagogues who would induce them to part with their birthright for a mess of pottage burnt on the bottom.
"Psycho-Phone Messages"
Francis Grierson

Famous quotes with Demagogues

  • The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned.
    Henry A. Wallace
  • Freedom of press and freedom of speech: What a blessing for a country while in the hands of honest, patriotic men; what a curse if in the hands of designing demagogues.
    William J. H. Boetcker
  • It is often sadly remarked that the bad economists present their errors to the public better than the good economists present their truths. It is often complained that demagogues can be more plausible in putting forward economic nonsense from the platform than the honest men who try to show what is wrong with it. But the basic reason for this ought not to be mysterious. The reason is that the demagogues and bad economists are presenting half-truths. They are speaking only of the immediate effect of a proposed policy or its effect upon a single group. As far as they go they may often be right. In these cases the answer consists in showing that the proposed policy would also have longer and less desirable effects, or that it could benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The answer consists in supplementing and correcting the half-truth with the other half. But to consider all the chief effects of a proposed course on everybody often requires a long, complicated, and dull chain of reasoning. Most of the audience finds this chain of reasoning difficult to follow and soon becomes bored and inattentive. The bad economists rationalize this intellectual debility and laziness by assuring the audience that it need not even attempt to follow the reasoning or judge it on its merits because it is only “classicism” or “laissez-faire,” or “capitalist apologetics” or whatever other term of abuse may happen to strike them as effective.
    Henry Hazlitt
  • The author of the Laws was a disgruntled old man, full of political rancor, fearing and hating the crowd and above all their demagogues; his prejudices had crystallized and he had become an old doctrinaire, unable to see anything but the reflections of his own personality and to hear anything but the echoes of his own thoughts.
    Plato
  • There is a limit to the success of conservative populism and the exploitation of "little guy" or "silent majority" rhetoric, and it is very often reached because of the emaciated, corrupted personalities of the demagogues themselves.
    Christopher Hitchens

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