"The whole history of the country has been a history of melodramatic pursuits of horrendous monsters, most of them imaginary: the red-coats, the Hessians, the monocrats, again the red-coats, the Bank, the Catholics, Simon Legree, the Slave Power, Jeff Davis, Mormonism, Wall Street, the rum demon, John Bull, the hell hounds of plutocracy, the trusts, General Weyler, Pancho Villa, German spies, hyphenates, the Kaiser, Bolshevism... A complete chronicle of the Republic could be written in terms of it without omitting a single important episode... plain people, under democracy, never vote FOR anything, but always AGAINST something."
HL Mencken's Notes on Democracy
1926
A thoroughly amusing read, BTW. Each side really does believe the the other will bring the apocalypse.
PD
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