In this BBC Newsnight segment, Viewpoint: What can Plato teach us about Donald Trump?, they attribute a number of quotes to Plato and Aristotle that could be interpreted as predicting a scenario similar to one we are experiencing in US politics.
It is these quotes I am interested in:
Socrates apparently said:
"Tyranny is probably established out of no other regime than democracy"
He then warns:
"It's freedoms multiply, until it becomes a many-coloured clock decorated in all hues. Men are interchangeable with women, and all their natural differences forgotten. Animals have rights. Foreigners can come and work just like citizens. Children boss their parents around. Teachers are afraid of their students. The rich try to look just like the poor."
"Soon every kind of inequality is despised. The wealthy are particularly loathed. And elites in general are treated as suspect, perpetuating inequality and representing injustice."
And apparently Plato said this:
"It's when a democracy has evolved into this, that a would-be tyant would seize his moment. He is usually of the elite but is intune with the time. Given over to random pleasures and whims. Feasting on food, and especially sex."
"He makes his move by taking over a particularly obedient mob, and attacking his wealthy peers as corrupt. He is a traitor to his class, and soon his elite enemies find a way to appease him or are forced to flee."
"Eventually he stands alone, offering the addled, distracted, self indulgent citizens a kind of relief from democracy's endless choices and insecurities."
"He rides a backlash to success. Too much freedom seems to change into nothing but too much slavery. He offers himself as the personified answer to all problems. To replace the elites, and rule alone on behalf of the masses. And as the people thrill to him as a kind of solution, a democracy willingly, impetuously, repeals itself."
I was wondering if this is a fairly accurate translation, or if liberties have been taken, or if this was mostly made up.