Editing Demagogue (section)

== Positive demagoguery ==

=== Tactical demagoguery ===
Some scholars have challenged the consensus that demagoguery is necessarily a bad form of leadership and rhetoric. In ''Demagogues in American Politics'', for example, Charles U. Zug argues that demagoguery can be legitimate and even good if integrated into a broader strategy for political reform and if coupled with a robust rationale for political change.<ref name="zug">{{Cite book |last=Zug |first=Charles U |title=Demagogues in American Politics |date=2022-10-18 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-765194-0 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Constitutionalist |first=The |date=2022-10-03 |title=Demagogues in American Politics |url=https://theconstitutionalist.org/2022/10/03/demagogues-in-american-politics/ |access-date=2023-01-12 |website=The Constitutionalist |language=en-US}}</ref> Zug contrasts classical or traditional approaches to demagoguery, which assume that demagogues are motivated by vicious intentions (such as an unrestrained desire for power), with a modern approach that focuses on the external words and deeds that demagogues use to advance political goals.<ref name="zug"/> Relatedly, as Princeton Classicist Melissa Lane has argued, in [[Pre-Socratic philosophy|pre-Socratic]] antiquity demagogues were originally viewed as neither inherently good nor inherently bad, but rather as advocates for the common people (as opposed to the oligarchs).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lane |first=Melissa |date=2012 |title=The Origins of the Statesman?Demagogue Distinction in and After Ancient Athens |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/LANTOO-3 |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |volume=73 |issue=2 |pages=179–200 |doi=10.1353/jhi.2012.0020|s2cid=153320811 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Zug has argued that conceiving of demagoguery as an inherently negative practice incentivizes political actors to weaponize the label "demagogue"; as a consequence, otherwise innocent victims—such as the supposed leader of [[Shays' Rebellion]], [[Daniel Shays]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beeman |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yz_68SNGKuMC |title=Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution |year=2010 |publisher=Random House Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-8129-7684-7 |page=17 |language=en}}</ref>—can be inaccurately branded as vicious, unscrupulous leaders.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zug |first=Charles U. |date=2021-09-01 |title=Creating a Demagogue: The Political Origins of Daniel Shays's Erroneous Legacy in American Political History |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/716687 |journal=American Political Thought |language=en |volume=10 |issue=4 |pages=601–628 |doi=10.1086/716687 |s2cid=243849281 |issn=2161-1580|url-access=subscription }}</ref> 

=== Demagoguery in constitutional office ===
Zug also argues that demagoguery takes on different meanings when deployed by public officials in different institutions; for example, American federal judges should be scrutinized more carefully for using demagoguery than should legislators, since the act of judging well—i.e., adjudicating legal disputes—does not require direct appeals to the public.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Zug |first=Charles |date=2021-02-18 |title=Rhetorical Duty and the Constitutional Order |url=https://theconstitutionalist.org/2021/02/18/rhetorical-duty-and-the-constitutional-order/ |access-date=2023-01-12 |website=The Constitutionalist |language=en-US}}</ref> In contrast, being an effective [[member of Congress]] requires advocating for a constituency and getting (re)elected; and these responsibilities in turn require direct public appeals, and sometimes, demagoguery.<ref name="zug"/>