biblioquotables

"There isn't a way things should be. There's just what happens, and what we do."

Many Americans continue to wonder why so many of their fellow citizens choose to vote for someone so deeply flawed as Donald Trump.

In a recent comment to an article in The Washington Post, a reader (Ulyth) suggested that "H. L. Mencken's blunt and astute observation of the common man from early last century explains both Trump and MAGA World." [emphasis added]

Ulyth followed this comment by quoting Mencken. (Below is an expanded version of the quote.)

"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. A Galileo could no more be elected President of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome." [emphasis added] --H.L. Mencken (1922). The Smart Set, 68.

Ulyth went on to comment: "Incredibly prescient, Mencken predicted 2016 and Trump's ongoing, appalling appeal." [emphasis added]

This was followed by another quote by Mencken. (Below is an expanded version of the quote.)

“When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost. [...] "All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most 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.” [emphasis added] -- H. L. Mencken (1920, July 26). Bayard vs Lionhart. The Evening Sun.

A cri du coeur on behalf of a country I love deeply.

TEXT:

GREECE IS BURNING

In threatened churches the Theotokos clutches her child tighter, until he almost cries out. Saints twitch with fear in the prison of their icons.

Beside each cypress or olive, a wood-nymph curls into ash. They settle thickly on red tiled roofs, making of whole towns discarded cigarettes.

"Anyhow, there’ll be plenty of jam in heaven, that’s one comfort,” he said complacently. Anne nipped a smile in the bud.

“Perhaps there will . . . if we want it,” she said, “But what makes you think so?” “Why, it’s in the catechism,” said Davy. “Oh, no, there is nothing like that in the catechism, Davy.”

“But I tell you there is,” persisted Davy. “It was in that question Marilla taught me last Sunday. ‘Why should we love God?’ It says, ‘Because He makes preserves, and redeems us.’ Preserves is just a holy way of saying jam.”

“I must get a drink of water,” said Anne hastily. When she came back it cost her some time and trouble to explain to Davy that a certain comma in the said catechism question made a great deal of difference in the meaning."