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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

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1 posted on 07/26/2016 12:25:26 PM PDT by poconopundit
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To: poconopundit

So are you telegraphing that it’s time to hoist the black flag and spit upon our hands...? just curious... /h


2 posted on 07/26/2016 12:27:48 PM PDT by IllumiNaughtyByNature (HTTP 500 - Internal Server Error)
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To: HarleyLady27; Be Careful; Fiddlstix; JoSixChip; kanawa; Yaelle; SubMareener; Vision Thing; ...
FRiends, an essay by H. L. Mencken that will enlighten and make you laugh.  Trump is the living embodiment of the political leader Mencken was advocating for...


3 posted on 07/26/2016 12:29:06 PM PDT by poconopundit (When the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government. Franklin, Const. Conv.)
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To: IllumiNaughtyByNature
Yes, it is definitely time to do that!


4 posted on 07/26/2016 12:31:42 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

Today’s political rulers have drowned in their own corruption. But beware the man who is given the power to ‘fix’ things by his power; you may get what you wanted and more.


5 posted on 07/26/2016 12:39:17 PM PDT by lurk (T)
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To: poconopundit

Idiotic headline.

Mencken was stating what he thought was the default position of ALL our leaders.

If you want to channel H L Mencken, he would place the Clintons and Obama and all the democrats light years ahead of Trump for demagoguery.

Looks like somebody still can’t accept Trump’s appeal, which is his collective campaign stands, plus a solid record of unusual accomplishments. Actual accomplishments, ones not based on empty rhetoric.


6 posted on 07/26/2016 12:41:21 PM PDT by odawg
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To: poconopundit

How country club Republican of you.


7 posted on 07/26/2016 12:43:50 PM PDT by WMarshal (Trump 2016)
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To: poconopundit

Sounds like a liberal/socialist/fabian society kinda guy. His contempt for humanity is palpable.


8 posted on 07/26/2016 12:43:58 PM PDT by gspurlock (http://www.backyardfence.wordpress.com)
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To: poconopundit

What has Obama or Cointons taught us


9 posted on 07/26/2016 12:51:54 PM PDT by stocksthatgoup (Don't argue with a Liberal. Ask him simple questions and listen to him stutter)
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To: poconopundit

i never thought i would see a guy who had worse hair than donald trump.


10 posted on 07/26/2016 12:53:45 PM PDT by teeman8r (Armageddon won't be pretty, but it's not like it's the end of the world.)
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To: odawg
It's demagoguery, but used for the good of the country.

I'm not denying Trump's great accomplishments -- I'm one of his biggest fans -- but I agree with Mencken that he's also succeeding because he knows how to influence all the voters, not just the political elite and intelligentsia.

11 posted on 07/26/2016 12:54:24 PM PDT by poconopundit (When the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government. Franklin, Const. Conv.)
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To: gspurlock
Sounds like a liberal/socialist/fabian society kinda guy.

Quite the opposite, H.L. Mencken was an old-school conservative (basically libertarian) opponent of FDR and the New Deal. He certainly wouldn't have had any use for Clinton or Obama, being an enemy of both political cronyism and the welfare state. I doubt Mencken would like any contemporary politicians very much either, including Trump, since he disliked demagogues and was wary of mass movements in general, for better or for worse.

His contempt for humanity is palpable.

That much is true. Mencken saw himself as America's version of Friedrich Nietzsche.

12 posted on 07/26/2016 12:55:16 PM PDT by ek_hornbeck
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To: poconopundit

from dictionary.com:

Demagoguery is an appeal to people that plays on their emotions and prejudices rather than on their rational side. Demagoguery is a manipulative approach — often associated with dictators and sleazy politicians — that appeals to the worst nature of people.

Explain what is irrational about Trump’s campaign issues.


13 posted on 07/26/2016 1:04:59 PM PDT by odawg
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To: poconopundit
Let me offer an interesting piece by Mencken on the Conservative Democrat of the same era--the one politician whom Mencken truly admired--who was also the first Senator to rise against Wilson's League of Nations, and one whom I, as a student of his oratory since college, feel absolutely certain would be all in for Donald Trump, today.

Mencken's Tribute To James A. Reed.

Note, Reed rejected Wilson's League a full week before any Republican joined him (Borah, was the first); and as the Mencken piece makes clear, was really the master debater who more than any other destroyed the Wilsonian fallacy.

Reed was also an advocate of a strong Navy, and predicted the course of the Japanese attack in the Pacific in 1922, in opposing the Naval disarmament treaty.

14 posted on 07/26/2016 1:10:26 PM PDT by Ohioan
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To: poconopundit

1922 was not during the Great Depression. It was during the postwar boom. Liberals used to love Menken for his contempt for the common man, until his diaries were released in the 80’s, and he was revealed to be a racist, anti-Semetic fascist. Then they dropped him like a hot rock.


15 posted on 07/26/2016 1:16:15 PM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: odawg
Maybe demagoguery is too strong a term for our use today. We would call it the art of persuasion. One hundred years ago when Mencken wrote this, the term probably had different connotations.

Today we would say "clever marketing" and "creating a powerful image" -- Trump is a master at that.

Now as far as issues are concerned, I think he's overstated the ability to keep American companies competitive across the board. Yes, in the near term, he can take steps to keep jobs and money in the country, but international product/service quality has improved to the point that you can't keep all industries through protectionist policies.

The Trump ties, for example, are made in Asia and if you did not source from low cost suppliers in Asia (and elsewhere) then retail stores would dry up because you could not afford to hire the people who stock the shelves and work the cash registers.

So this is an example of where Trump is overstating the case, I think. OK, so why do I think Trump is doing this? Because he needs blue collar votes to win -- and winning will save the country. We can't afford to let Hillary win: she would destroy the Republic.

16 posted on 07/26/2016 1:23:24 PM PDT by poconopundit (When the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government. Franklin, Const. Conv.)
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To: ozzymandus
Thank you, I stand corrected. Yes, the Depression was in the 1930s.

What did he say that was racist? It's true that his words today sometimes offend our ears. But given his time in writing this was 1922, he was probably reflecting the prejudices and biases of his era.

Even if you concede that he was racist in certain respects, the was a great thinker across a very wide writing career. For example, at one point he was the foremost literary critic of his time.

17 posted on 07/26/2016 1:30:10 PM PDT by poconopundit (When the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government. Franklin, Const. Conv.)
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To: ozzymandus
Liberals used to love Menken for his contempt for the common man, until his diaries were released in the 80’s, and he was revealed to be a racist, anti-Semetic fascist

Mencken was many things, but a fascist wasn't one of them. He despised Hitler and Mussolini as he despised all demagogues, cults of personality, and power grabs by the government. He opposed Roosevelt and the New Deal because he detected shades of the same tendencies, though not as extreme, in his policies.

As for his "racism" and "anti-Semitism," Mencken made plenty of politically incorrect remarks about blacks and about Jews, often tongue in cheek, the most famous being "An anti-Semite is someone who hates Jews more than necessary". However, Mencken hated the Ku Klux Klan and crude race/Jew-baiting much more than he ever disliked blacks or Jews (one of the reasons Mencken detested Henry Ford was because of Ford's credulous peddling of "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion"). If anything, Mencken was probably less "racist" than the average white American in the 1920's.

18 posted on 07/26/2016 1:39:50 PM PDT by ek_hornbeck
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To: Ohioan
Brilliant!  Loved it.  Thanks for posting.  And glad to find another Mencken fan on this thread. Reading this piece about James A. Reed, you certainly get the sense that Trump would receive high praise from the Terror of Baltimore. 

The last lines could have been written about today's Congress:


19 posted on 07/26/2016 1:42:51 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
On the same link, you will find links to three of Reed's speeches, including the speech that Mencken heard in the Senate gallery on the eve of the Harding inauguration, as well as an article that Reed wrote for Mencken in the mid-1920s, etc..

Reed was an absolute terror to phonies in the Senate, even as Mencken describes.

20 posted on 07/26/2016 1:47:20 PM PDT by Ohioan
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