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H. L. Mencken Predicted Donald Trump, the Enlightened Rabble-Rouser
Vox Populi ^ | June 1922 | H. L. Mencken

Posted on 07/26/2016 12:25:25 PM PDT by poconopundit

 

At last week's Republican convention, Trump proclaimed to the working people of America: "I am your voice".  It was an admission of something Trump supporters have known all along: Trump is the champion of WE THE PEOPLE.

Yet thirteen months and 10,000 media stories later, the journalist class is still in denial about what Trump is about.  Plus he's been called "vulgar" and "not Presidential" by elite pundits like Bill Kristol, George Will, and countless others.

Well, as usual, my good FRiend HarleyLady27 clears away smoke in order, as she explain in a recent comment:


    The man can be a brilliant speaker, but he needed to get to the "dumbed down" middle class people, where he lives, works, hires, listens.  This is how he had to talk at his rallies: he had to grab their attention span, which wasn't that long and zero in on his points...

    And the man walked away from the roll call vote with over 1,700 delegates...  Call the man anything you want, but don't call this man stupid, far from it, he already is a year into his Presidency and we haven't even gotten to November yet...

This vanity will take the notion of "voice of middle class people" to a whole new level thanks to the commentary of maybe the greatest pundit America has ever seen: H. L. Mencken.

Back in the days of the Great Depression, Mencken wrote a short essay entitled, Vox Populi, a highly insightful and devilishly-fun-to-read analysis of the American political scene — as you'll soon see.

Now a very interesting point her is that Vox Populi seems to presage the arrival of a Trump, a man with a good sense of how the society should be led, and someone who is also a master in the arts of persuasion and influencing the masses.

What I've done here is extract and lightly edit the best parts the text.  Hopefully this will excite you enough to read the full essay or even get yourself a copy of the book I found it in: H.  L.  Mencken's Smart Set Criticismwhich holds a special place on my library shelf. 

Vox Populi
H. L. Mencken
June 1922

The Key Political Question:

How, in spite of the incurable imbecility of the great masses of men, are we to get a reasonable measure of sense and decency into the conduct of the world?

The Traditional Answer is to Educate the Masses..

By spreading enlightenment, by democratising information, by combating what is false with what is true.

But Educating the Masses doesn't Work...

Why? Because that scheme, however persuasively it is tried, invariably gets shipwrecked by two or three immovable facts:

  • One is the fact that a safe majority of the men and women in every modern society cannot be educated, save within very narrow limits.  It is no more possible to teach them what every voter theoretically should know than it is teach a chimpanzee to play the viola de gamba.

  • Second, the safe majority, far from having any natural yearning to acquire this body of truth, has a natural and apparently incurable distrust of it. 

  • And third, no body of teachers in Christendom is capable of teaching the truth.  The teacher, almost ex officio, seems to corrupt it and put it down, so the inevitable tendency is to preserve and spread the lies that are respectable to the current masters of the mob.

Now, I Don't Deny that People can Learn Things...

The great masses of men can take in certain sorts of knowledge, at least within narrow limits:

  • Fully 80 percent of the inhabitants of the United States, within our own time, have absorbed a number of solid facts, before unknown to them — for example, that beer is easy to make in the kitchen, that wood alcohol has various unpleasant physiological effects, and that it is dangerous to crank a Ford.

  • Probably half as many have taken in information of a somewhat wider and more philosophical kind — for example, that the guarantees in the Bill of Rights are merely rhetorical, that saving the world for democracy costs a great deal of money, that feeding a human infant on fried liver will not make it flourish, and every old woman who mumbles as she shuffles along is not a witch.

  • Go back a thousand years, and you will be able to show even greater accretions of knowledge, much of it sound. 

  • The average member of the American Legion, though the professors may report him a moron, knows more, I am convinced, than the average legionary of Caesar's Gallic army, and what he knows is better organized.

  • The average American farmer, though he voted for Bryan, is more intelligent than the peasant of Charlemagne's time.

  • Even the average American Congressman, at least in matters that do not concern the business of lawmaking, probably has more useful information in him than the average member of a Tenth Century Witenagemot.

The Progress of Enlightenment Doesn't Reach the Great Masses of People

  • Enlightenment is a matter which concerns exclusively a small minority of men.  The size of that minority is always grossly overestimated.

  • Because a man is a Ph.D. and licensed to teach Latin grammar it is assumed that he is generally intelligent — that he shares, to some extent at least, in the stupendous miscellaneous knowledge of a Virchow or Huxley.  The assumption is often false.  He may be, in fact, practically an imbecile, and not infrequently he actually is.

  • I do not here argue, of course, that the intelligence of a man is to be determined by subjected him to an examination like that recently proposed by Thomas A.  Edison.  Edison himself, indeed, though he could pass his own examination, must be thick-witted at bottom, for when he goes on a holiday he chooses such men as Harding and Henry Ford as his companions.

  • But what I do argue is that no man can be said to share fully in the progress of human knowledge who is ignorant of any of its basic facts — for example, the facts that ghosts do not actually haunt graveyards, that printing money cannot make a nation rich, and that men cannot be made virtuous by law.

The Human Race is actually split into Two Distinct Species

  • The one species is characterized by an incurable thirst for knowledge, and an extraordinary capacity for recognizing and taking in facts and evidences.

  • The other is just as brilliantly marked by a chronic appetite for whatever is most palpably false and a chronic distrust for whatever is palpably true.

  • To the second species being the overwhelming majority of individuals under democracy, including all the favorite politicians, philosophers, theologians, star-gazers, and diviners.  These half-wits now run the world.

The People in Power Today are Mob-Masters

  • The great nations of the world are run today, not by their first-rate men, nor even by their second-rate or third-rate men, but by groups of professional mob-masters, all of them ignorant and most of them corrupt. 

  • Well, how is it that such men reach so high an estate in a great nation — and in every other great nation, under democracy, there are scoundrels to match him?

  • It comes very simply.  The mob-master is imprimis, so near to the mob in his natural ways of thought — his gross self-seeking and lack of sensitiveness, his tendency to reduce all ideas to hollow formulae, his feeling of kinship with the ignorant and degraded men — that is is easy for him to put himself into their collective mind.

  • He is so lacking in ordinary professional pride and conscientiousness that he is willing to submit with alacrity to the mob's mandates, even when he dissents from them and regards them as dangerous and wrong. 

  • In brief, he is a demogogue, and his power rests wholly upon his talent for that role.  What keeps him in office is simply his tremendous capacity for evoking the emotions of the mob.

The Problem of Democratic Government Narrows Down to...

  • How is the relatively enlightened and reputable minority to break the hold of such mountebanks upon the votes of the anthropoid majority?

  • At first glance, the thing seems insoluble, but there is one consolation: The man of education and self-respect may not run with the mob, and he may not yield to it supinely, but what is prevent him deliberately pulling its nose?

  • What is to prevent him from playing on its fears and credulities to good ends as a physician plays upon them by giving its members bread bills, or as a holy clerk, seeing to bring it up to relative decency, scares it with tales of mythical hell?

  • In brief, what is to prevent him swallowing his political prejudices in order to channel and guide the prejudices of his inferiors?

  • It may be, at first blush, an unsavory job — but so is delivering a fat woman of twins an unsavory job.  Yet obstetricians of the first skill and repute do it — if the fee be large enough.  So is hearing the confessions of Freudian old maids.  Yet priests do it.  So is going to war.  Yet the chivalry of the world has just done it.

What I propose, in truth, has been done already

  • Men of very considerable intelligence have done so to brilliant effect.  I allude to the boob-bumping that was undertaken during the late war by certain members of the intelligentsia.

  • Some of the most potent raids upon the boob emotions made during those days were planned and executed, in fact, by men who were normally too sniffish to engage in any such enterprise.

  • If they devote themselves to the arts of the demogogue in peace times as ardently and ingeniously as they did in war times, they would present a very formidable opposition to the Bryans, Roosevelts, Hardings, Cabot Lodges, Cal Coolidges and other professionals, and perhaps debauch the booboisie into accepting ideas of relatively high soundness.  Not, of course, as ideas, but as emotions. 

  • As a matter of bald sense or decency, I believe, it is a sheer impossibility to induce the mob to do or believe anything.  But as a matter of fact it is possible to make it do or believe almost everything.  The demagogue is a man who is privy to this fact.

  • There will come a change in the conduct of the world when men of intelligence and integrity also become privy to it, and being privy to it, act upon it boldly and vigorously. 



TOPICS: Government; Politics
KEYWORDS: 2020election; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; election2020; hlmencken; mediawingofthednc; mencken; partisanmediashills; presstitutes; smearmachine; trump
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To: ek_hornbeck
Good commentary.

On the Friedrich Nietzsche point, I think Mencken would find in Trump strong parallels to Nietsche's "Super Man" concept -- given Trump's career across many fronts: real estate, hotels, golf courses, television, publishing, and now politics.

21 posted on 07/26/2016 1:59:23 PM PDT by poconopundit (When the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government. Franklin, Const. Conv.)
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To: Ohioan
I read through a lot of the first speech of Reed's in the Senate and it's quite a prescient speech that talks quite a bit about colonialism and its relationship to globalism,

Lots of great commentary to finish reading later on. Thanks.

Reed is quite the politician. Honest, articulate, predicts the future. He's a duck out of water in Congress :- )

22 posted on 07/26/2016 2:21:14 PM PDT by poconopundit (When the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government. Franklin, Const. Conv.)
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To: poconopundit
H.L. Mencken, along with Eric Hoffer, was one of the most amazing 20th-century American thinkers, on par with Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin in 19th and 18th century, respectively. The thing that all four men had in common, which is uniquely-American, is they were all autodidacts, or self-made men, instead being factory outputs of some college or university. Unfortunately, America has no use for self-made sages anymore.
23 posted on 07/26/2016 2:45:47 PM PDT by Trentamj
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To: Trentamj
Interesting. My Dad was a big enthusiast of Eric Hoffer.

I had to look up the term autodidact and I found an interesting article about it: The Self-Taught Master: How To Become An Autodidact.

It's much easier to self-educate yourself these days with all the resources on line. I learned object oriented programming without taking a course on the subject. But I ran into an international forum and people at the other end were more than happy to give advice. You could ask questions and get replies very fast. So it's not just the text, but also the support networks are out there.

And as I think back on it, I actually didn't learn that much in my college courses because it was something I had to do -- not something I wanted to do.

So I am working today at the library and just picked up a book by Eric Hoffer. Thanks for the recommendation :- )

24 posted on 07/26/2016 5:14:12 PM PDT by poconopundit (When the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government. Franklin, Const. Conv.)
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To: teeman8r
"i never thought i would see a guy who had worse hair than donald trump.

What about HIllary Clinton?

25 posted on 07/26/2016 5:35:52 PM PDT by tinyowl (A equals A)
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To: poconopundit

This is a great read - thanks Poco. He’s one of my favorites.


26 posted on 07/26/2016 5:48:59 PM PDT by tinyowl (A equals A)
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To: poconopundit
I'll never understand why so many conservatives admire H.L. Mencken, the original slanderer of rural Southern fundamentalists.

No healthy movement can admire both poor rural Southern fundamentalists and the man who called them "gaping primates who believe degraded nonsense."

27 posted on 07/26/2016 6:27:46 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator (Sof davar hakol nishma`; 'et-ha'Eloqim yera' ve'et-mitzvotayv shemor, ki-zeh kol-ha'adam.)
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To: ek_hornbeck

Thanks for the information, but it’s very difficult for me to reconcile that contempt with libertarian thoughts. Nietzche is also someone whose thoughts sound very liberal/progressive, mostly I guess because of the amorality.

I’m more of a St. Thomas Aquinas, kinda gal. A philosophy student that I met once told me that Nietzche saw himself as a Protestant Aquinas. So I guess even the intelligentsia don’t think entirely for themselves. Then they condemn people who support those who either think like them or can communicate successfully to them. Wah!!! Buncha crybabies ;)


28 posted on 07/26/2016 6:28:40 PM PDT by gspurlock (http://www.backyardfence.wordpress.com)
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To: poconopundit

bkmk


29 posted on 07/26/2016 9:35:26 PM PDT by AllAmericanGirl44 (If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.)
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To: poconopundit
FRiends, an essay by H. L. Mencken that will enlighten and make you laugh.

I would say it would more bore you and make you wonder at the type of people who take this kind of thing seriously.

But then I have always found Nazi sympathizers puzzling and just a bit dim.

30 posted on 07/26/2016 9:50:47 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (Proud Infidel, Gun Nut, Religious Fanatic and Freedom Fiend)
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To: gspurlock
Thanks for the information, but it’s very difficult for me to reconcile that contempt with libertarian thoughts. Nietzche is also someone whose thoughts sound very liberal/progressive, mostly I guess because of the amorality.

This is because people tend to equate religiosity with conservative thought and atheism/irreligion with liberalism and socialism. This wasn't always the case. For example, Mencken's nemesis William Jennings Bryan championed both religious fundamentalism and egalitarian causes, which was hardly atypical at the time. The association of fundamentalist religion with the political Right is a fairly recent phenomenon in the US, less so in the UK, and not at all in continental Europe.

The fundamental divide between Right and Left has always been about whether one believes in some form of natural inequality vs. thinking that any non-egalitarian society is an artifact of our institutions, something that can be done away with through the right type of social engineering. Both egalitarians and anti-egalitarians had religious and non-religious people in their ranks. From this definition, the agnostic or atheist Spencer, Nietzsche, and Mencken (or, to contemporary audiences, a more familiar example would be Ayn Rand) were clearly Right-wingers.

31 posted on 07/27/2016 5:03:10 AM PDT by ek_hornbeck
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To: poconopundit

Supposedly the dumbest 10% of voters decide the outcome of national elections, no matter the outcome, pub or dem, con or lib. So a very high % of campaign money is meant to sway the swing voters, the ones who reliably manage to vote, but will vote one way and then another and usually can’t give a rational reason as to why. It could be a debate flub, or really well attended rally, or liking or not liking how someone looks. And getting these folks to vote your way is supposedly the key to victory, along with things like suppressing the vote of the suppressible.

We haven’t had 65% eligible voter turnout since 1908. Most of the time it has been much less than that. But maybe that is a good thing. If turnout was higher, I suspect it would only result in a higher % of swing voters. I suppose that could potentially be really good or bad, like flipping a coin 10 times and accidentally ending up with a conservative utopia or a liberal dystopia.

Freegards


32 posted on 07/27/2016 5:19:18 AM PDT by Ransomed
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To: poconopundit
Who really cares?!! TRUMP is the strong leader I've been praying for. There is much faith and trust placed in this Man of the People.

If he manages to win this and proceed to change our country back to that which was envisioned by our FF, he will have my deepest gratitude, commitment and loyalty.

Mr. Trump, WTP are watching you, moving forward with you. Please, sir, don't let us down and don't allow our country to be swallowed by those that wish to see us go down and under.

TRiUMPh

33 posted on 07/27/2016 2:52:54 PM PDT by V K Lee (u TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP to TRIUMPH Follow the lead MAKE AMERICA GREAT)
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To: poconopundit

Thanks for the ping, Pocono.

Of course, what was written earlier is not intended as a slap. However, it does indicate a bit of tired and weary on this part. It’s been quite a year and will be a roller coaster ride for the next few months. Onward and upward.

Again...WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!! — and once again, Thank You Mr. Trump.


34 posted on 07/27/2016 3:21:08 PM PDT by V K Lee (u TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP to TRIUMPH Follow the lead MAKE AMERICA GREAT)
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To: poconopundit

bmk


35 posted on 10/24/2016 9:41:49 PM PDT by ransomnote
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To: poconopundit

bmk


36 posted on 10/24/2016 9:43:20 PM PDT by ransomnote
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To: WMarshal
How country club Republican of you.

What, exactly?
Not enough intellectual horsepower there to refute, but resorting to hit and run (and incompetent) vacuous words?

There are certainly many Freepers we could get well enough without.

37 posted on 08/28/2018 11:33:47 AM PDT by publius911 (Rule by Fiat-Obama's a Phone and a Pen)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...
Note: this topic is from 07/26/2016. Thanks poconopundit.

38 posted on 06/30/2020 1:42:05 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Liz; SunkenCiv; LS; alloysteel; V K Lee
Liz, Mencken's command of the smart one-liner is unparalleled.  Pure genius.  He's a FReeper fortisimo

In his heyday, Mencken was the most widely read columnist in the country, and at the same time was also the foremost literary critic.  He helped made F. Scott Fitzgerald (Great Gatsy) famous, for example.

Just now, visiting Mencken's quotes on Wikiquote, I ran into a beautiful gem — from "Liberty and Democracy" (1925) — that precisely pegs the Democrats and their agenda today:


39 posted on 07/01/2020 7:33:56 AM PDT by poconopundit (Iron fist in an Irish velvet glove: Kayleigh "Shillelagh" McEnany we salute your work!)
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To: poconopundit

That’s a great one.


40 posted on 07/01/2020 7:41:07 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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