Mencken Vindicated
- At November 19, 2004
- By Bob Howe
- In Blog Posts
11
The folks at Snopes Urban Legends Reference Page confirm the prescience of America’s most famous cynic on the devolution of the presidency:
The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
H.L. Mencken, 1920
c3fyn
*sigh*
admin
Yup. There isn’t much else to say, is there?
blndbmbshltr
and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
yep.
mckitterick
I hate it when dystopian visions come true. Let’s hope not too many come true in the next few years.
Chris
admin
I don’t think even Mencken anticipated how malevolent the moron would be, and how casually he would waste the lives of troops and civilians.
admin
Concur. I hear the administration getting ready to tee up on Iran, and I know they don’t have more troops to send. What will they do? Even if draftees started entering the pipeline today, it would be at least five to six months before combat troops started trickling out the other end. Would Washington bomb the suspected sites? Bomb Tehran?
And what options do responsible foreign policy adults have in Iran and North Korea, now that we’ve shot our preemptive wad on the least threatening dictator on the planet?
ashbet
Mencken was an astute soul. Oi.
And the sad part is that the caliber of presidents in *those* days was so much higher than it is today . . . not even Mencken could’ve anticipated *this* buffoon at the helm. At least, I hope not.
It’s sad when one finds oneself wishing for a genial but harmless idiot as opposed to a meanspirited bully-child who seems to think he’s playing toy soldiers with real lives . . .
— A :/
mckitterick
Bomb Tehran. Gawds.
Do you suppose Bush really is as crazy as I fear? That he’s an apocalyptic type who feels it’s his mission to bring about the Second Coming?
Chills, sir, I feel chills.
Chris
admin
It’s sad when one finds oneself wishing for a genial but harmless idiot as opposed to a meanspirited bully-child who seems to think he’s playing toy soldiers with real lives . . .
Amen, Sister!
I like Mencken, but I have to say that was an expert in only finding shit sandwiches at life’s banquet.
Anonymous
Devolution
I think intelligence is a feature that many American voters consider undesirable. A man with too much intelligence might look down his nose at the good ol’ idiots of the world.
At the same time, let us remember that the moron didn’t win by a landslide. A large minority of the population voted against him.
Is there hope? I don’t know. Idiocy breeds more idiocy. Fools in high office work against education, because education leads to doubting God, having sex for fun instead of to make more idiots, teaching our children Evil-ution, grumbling against Kristchun prayer in schools, breastfeeding in McDonald’s, and scepticism about Santa. Worst of all, it might lead to stem cell research, which as we all know is against God’s will, because if God had wanted Christopher Reeve to live He would have given him the power to fly.
admin
Re: Devolution
Hi there. Sorry about the time lag in response, but I’ve been preoccupied with more immediate problems than the state of the union.
I think intelligence is a feature that many American voters consider undesirable. A man with too much intelligence might look down his nose at the good ol’ idiots of the world.
Yup. A recurring theme in my posts is the strain of anti-intellectualism in American life. I don’t know how to fix it, or even if it is fixable, especially since there are rich and powerful interests for whom the status quo is a good thing.