John Avlon Quotes

• We need to punch back against the extremes of both the left and the right and define the terms of the debate ourselves.

  John Avlon

• When people tap into this politics of resentment, it usually ends ugly.

  John Avlon

• Politics follows the lines of physics: every action creates an equal and opposite reaction.

  John Avlon

• What might be good for ratings can be bad for the country. The hard-core partisans are self-segregating themselves into separate political realities. But the majority of Americans are starting to wake up to the game.

  John Avlon

• Right now, politics follows the rules of talk radio – using conflict, tension, fear, and resentment to find new recruits.

  John Avlon

• The two parties are still more polarized than ever before and the rise of partisan media is an important reason for it.

  John Avlon

• The American people are smart. They’ve gotten sick of the predictable hyperpartisan talking points and canned anger.

  John Avlon

• I believe that the far-right and the far-left can be equally insane – but there’s no question that in the first years of the Obama administration, the far-right has been far crazier. In part, this comes from parties being out of power – without the responsibility of governing to ground them, the activists and the ideologues take over.

  John Avlon

• What’s different now is that while political leaders used to give talking points to talk radio, now talk-radio hosts are giving talking points to political leaders. It’s all part of the suffocating spin cycle we’re in. In media, politics and publishing, the conventional wisdom is to play to this base.

  John Avlon

• It’s important to remember that Bush Derangement Syndrome on the left – comparing him to Hitler, calling him a terrorist and a tyrant – preceded Obama Derangement Syndrome on the right.

  John Avlon

• One tell-tale sign of a Wingnut: they always confuse partisanship with patriotism.

  John Avlon

• If you only take offense when the president of your party is compared to Hitler, then you’re part of the problem.

  John Avlon

• I’m an independent. I’m a centrist. A new generation is arriving that has grown up with a multiplicity of choice in every aspect of their lives, and yet politics is the last place that they are told that they should be satisfied with a choice between brand A and brand B. It doesn’t fit the way they think. It doesn’t fit the way they live.

  John Avlon

• A wingnut is someone on the far-right wing or far-left wing of the political spectrum – the professional partisans, the unhinged activists and the paranoid conspiracy theorists. They’re the people who always try to divide rather than unite us.

  John Avlon

• First, I think more Americans need to declare their independence from partisan politics on both sides. The more that Americans declare their independence, the more the parties will have to compete for their votes using reason rather than the hateful appeals.

  John Avlon

John Avlon (15)

Birth:	1973
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Journalist, Political Analyst

About

John Phillips Avlon is an American journalist who is editor-in-chief and managing director of The Daily Beast and a CNN political analyst. He has also been a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun and chief speechwriter for former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. He earned his bachelor's degree from Yale University and an MBA from Columbia University. He has written several books include: Independent nation, Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America, Wingnuts: Extremism in the Age of Obama, and Washington's Farewell. He married Margaret Hoover in 2009. They have one son and one daughter.

Related Authors

• George MacDonald Fraser
• Sir William Robert Ferdinand Mount
• Mark Thomas
• Anderson Cooper
• Jennifer L. Weber
• Cory Doctorow
• Edgar Quinet
• Tristan Bernard
• Nancy O'Dell
• Terry Savage

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 4th April

Births

• 1913 - Muddy Waters
• 1979 - Natasha Lyonne
• 1970 - Barry Pepper
• 1932 - Anthony Perkins
• 1792 - Thaddeus Stevens

Deaths

• 1774 - Oliver Goldsmith
• 1824 - Alexander Henry
• 1883 - Peter Cooper
• 1284 - Alfonso X of Castile
• 1991 - Max Frisch