H.L. Mencken wrote it in The Baltimore Evening Sun, Sunday, July 26, 1920:
“As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. 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 occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron.”
Henry Louis Mencken @The Baltimore Evening Sun
Mencken was known as “the Sage of Baltimore.” These days, I listen to Bill Moyers, Christopher Hedges, and watch the PBS News Hour Friday nights with Mark Shields and David Brooks.
David Brooks’ “The Week Trump Won” (Oct. 26 NYT) confirms — in chilling detail — H.L. Mencken’s status as a prophet. Yet it ends with the faint hope that the better angels of the American character still lie buried in the people’s DNA, waiting for a spokesperson, a leader, to give voice to sanity and vision.
– Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Oct. 28, 2017.
Views from the Edge 
Thanks for posting that, Gordon. I have no other thoughts now because I have to send you a private msg!
Cynthia
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Cynthia, “Wait! Wait! Don’t tell me!” H.L. Mencken is your uncle! I’ll look for the private msg.
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Reblogged this on From Sandy Knob and commented:
Thought provoking….and all too true.
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Thanks, Karin, for the re-blog.
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rightly or wrongly (and it’s easy to forget the popular vote in all of this) I’ve always had the dreadful feeling that this election was not WON but bought. All you need are enough leaners who are involved in for the electoral college, a nudge here, a few thousand there, and suddenly we have a new president.
That is a scarily accurate prediction up there, btw. Thank you for that.
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Hi, Judy with the mittens and stone soup! Thanks for the comment. I, too, keep telling myself that he didn’t win it. He lost, but he won the Electoral College, God only knows how! The question every morning is what to do now.
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Hi, Judy with the mittens and stone soup! Thanks for the comment. I, too, keep telling myself that he didn’t win it. He lost, but he won the Electoral College, God only knows how! The question every morning is what to do now.
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Hi, Judy with the mittens and stone soup! Thanks for the comment. I, too, keep telling myself that he didn’t win it. He lost, but he won the Electoral College, God only knows how! The question every morning is what to do now.
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Trouble is, most people are now saying he won the whole thing, popular vote and all–mostly because he believes it himself.
All we can do, Gordon, is hope. I don’t watch the news head on, but give it a quick passing glance on my way to other places…just to make sure we haven’t enraged another potentate with an itchy trigger finger….
As long as there’s another morning to get up to…
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Watching the news is not good for one’s mental or emotional health, I’m afraid, though I was taught that it’s part of being a responsible citizen. These days I do better to stay away from it, except to read. Everything else is sensationalized by dramatic music to hype up the viewer.
Funny thing to say for a guy who wrote “Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness” — a lot easier written about than done.
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I wonder what H.L. say if he were covering the current leader of the pack.
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Maybe what Chis Hedges, Bill Maher, and Bill Moyers are saying?
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Nice piece, Gordon. I’m forever an H.L. fan since Gene Kelly’s portrayal in “Inherit The Wind”.
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Thanks for the re-blog, Marilyn.
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It was worth re-blogging. You said what needs to be said. Often. I have actually used that quote a couple of times, but it certainly bears repeating. Twain said something painfully similar, too. Maybe we were always heading for this disaster and just didn’t realize where we were going.
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There is something lethal and self-destructive in our character. Mencken and Twain knew it, although Mencken was very slow to recognize the horror in the ’30s.
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