Quotables 12 September 2024: On the 144th anniversary of his birth, H.L. Mencken’s prophecy about Trump, government as a ‘broker in pillage’, and the eternal nature of the American people

American journalist H.L. Mencken. Photo: A. Aubrey Bodine/Keystone/Getty Images

Foretelling Donald Trump: ‘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’.

A ‘broker in pillage’: ‘The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods’.

This holds more true now than ever: ‘The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth’.

Quotes via https://www.azquotes.com/author/9962-H_L_Mencken

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