David Cay Johnston

“Bill O'Reilly... called me a socialist, and I said "Interestingly, my books champion competitive markets," but I understand people like Bill think that competitive markets are a socialist scheme, because they just want to mine the public and make all the money they can, with no regard for anybody else.”

“We're all interdependent. Don't think about exploiting and mining other people because we're all interdependent. ...You say that today and people say, "Oh, you're a socialist!"”

“Japan has mandatory unions. ...It's in their Constitution, and who wrote their Constitution? ...The staff of... General Douglas MacArthur, because he knew that if Japan had unions it would democratize the country, it would tend to equalize incomes, and it would help resist the bellicose tendencies of the aristocratic class in Japan. And it's worked brilliantly.”

“One of the things that changed was [that] the institutions that supported working people have been decimated. ...[T]he Democrats, the party of the working people, played a role in this. They allowed the weakening... of unions. They bought the argument that unions are bad for companies.”

“There are always people who want a tyrant. Democracy requires work if it's going to work.”

“And then we get a man who hasn't done a single day of public service in his life, and he has a rabid following. This is a man whose lawyers... in court two weeks ago said that "Yes... if he were to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue no law enforcement agency could investigate. He is immune."”

“[O]ur Consitution... is designed to be slow and hard to change. It takes six years to get rid of all the scalawags in office today. ...[I]t's designed to be conservative, and it has a very interesting backstop. ...The {{w|electoral college}} has a second purpose... to have an ultimate backstop if the people went for a zealot, or a crazy person, to be president of the United States. ...[T]hat [the elector] would vote [his] conscious and say "No, the popular will here is wrong. This person will destroy our democracy."”

“All of the Founders of this country... were well steeped in the history of the ancient world. ...[T]hey were very concerned about the rabble... about people being inflamed, and making bad decisions, and ruining this idea they had. ...In many places you weren't allowed to vote if you were just a wage earner. The theory, and this came out of the horrible {{w|Patroon}} system of the Dutch in Hudson Valley, where ordinary people would be told by their boss, who to vote for. But if you were a {{w|freeholder}} no one could tell you what to do.”

“The other old democracy... was in Athens. ...Aristotle said democracy means "to rule and to be ruled in turns"... because the system... was designed to ensure that nobody would... cease power. ...Different clans had to be together. You couldn't be segregated. ...[E]very month a different group was in charge. ...[I]t worked for 200 years. [Much of] our Constitution is based... on the experience of Ancient Athens, of {{w|Attica}}.”

“The Haudenosaunee people, the People of the Longhouse, the ones we call the {{w|Iroquois}} created a democracy. ...[T]hey had the equivalent of state legislatures. ...[O]nly men ran for office. Only women voted, and women could remove from office men who misbehaved, and they did.”

“[W]hat's happened in our society is we have seen this experiment, this crazy idea of self-governance which had very few antecedents, atrophy.”

“The {{w|Rosetta Stone}} is a grant of tax relief. ...[E]ssentially it says... I, Pharaoh so and so... hereby make this grant of tax relief to these priests.”

“Whose society lasted 3,300 years? It was the [Egyptian] Pharaohs. ...They figured out through public works how to keep people busy and out of trouble, and every high-born Egyptian was taught... how far you can oppress people before they would strike back. ...[T]hey also learned one other lesson. You've all heard of the {{w|Rosetta Stone}}?”

“Governments throughout history have been run by tyrants.”

“The reason we created the Constitution was to tax ourselves... It's Article 1, Section [8]... that Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties and imposts [and excises].”

“[A] government that can't tax ...is no government at all.”

“The Founders of this country are in two groups... [W]e live in the second American republic because the first American republic under the Articles of Confederation failed, because it had no power to tax.”

“[I]n modern language we think of "idiot" as someone who is stupid or a fool. That is not the classical meaning... An idiot is someone who cares only about himself and has no regard for anyone else, and that's terribly important when you think about tyrants. ...[W]e think of tyrants as people who are horrible... oppressors. ...[I]n its classic historic meaning, tyrant was simply someone who ceased power.”

“Trump bought the Doral with $104.8 million he borrowed from {{w|Deutsche Bank}}... infamous for laundering money for Russian oligarchs. ...When Trump took office, the Doral was under a foreclosure order. Trump, as he often does, refused to pay contractors in full. ...Most contractors just walk away when Trump refuses to pay... because Trump will spend far more to litigate than the amount in dispute to discourage contractors and small business owners he cheats from suing for what they are due.”

“{{w|Richard W. Painter}} and {{w|Norm Eisen}}... as leaders of [CREW]... describe Trump's conduct as a "flagrant abuse" of the Constitution for personal profit. ...Painter, the Bush ethics chief... is almost apoplectic at Trump's conduct and the failure of his fellow Republicans to speak up.”