H. L. Mencken Quotes

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

The populist left loves power more than democracy, and it will fight to keep it at great cost.

Perhaps the most consequential features that all versions of populism share is the weakening of liberal democratic institutions.

Our democratic belief that anyone can be a political leader paradoxically feeds into the anti-democratic belief that we should look to one person to quickly and easily save us. No one, alone, can fix it, and in our system of government, this authoritarian approach is a prescription for catastrophe.

The idea that democracies could be vulnerable to demagogues is not a new notion.

Given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy. Indeed, if history is anything to go by, all societies eventually will.

There's no checklist of how democracies fail because they fail in different ways. Some of them fail because they break up and civil war breaks out... Often they fail because someone is elected to power who doesn't respect the rules of the democracy.

Developing and newer democracies are much more susceptible to the tactics of populists and demagogues - they often do not have strong institutions, free press, or the infrastructure required to defend their nascent democracies.

Men like Abraham Lincoln recognized that if the slaveholders were not stopped, it would only be a question of time until they spread their system of elite rule to the entire country. Poor men would be bound for life into menial labor, and American democracy would die.

Freedom does not die from frontal attack. It dies because men in power no longer believe in a system based upon liberty.

Politics is a dirty game. We have our rules in boxing. In politics, no rules. Especially a young democracy like Ukraine. It's more like MMA.

If one day the military comes to power, it will be through a vote.

When democracies don't deliver growth, alternatives seem more attractive.

Back in the 1950s, America set out to intervene in Syria, liberate the people from a corrupt elite, and bring about a new democracy. They did this with the best of intentions, but it led to disaster. And out of that disaster, the Assad regime rose to power.

This democracy is not by the people, of the people, for the people. This democracy is about by the party high command, of the party high command, and for the party high command.

Populism, literally, means speaking for 'the people.' In practice it means demagoguery.

Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting. What part of democracy are they afraid of? I call on Republicans at all levels of government, with all manner of ambition, to stop fear mongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud. I'm calling for universal, automatic voter registration, every citizen in every state in the union.

The people as a body cannot deliberate. Nevertheless, they will feel an irresistible impulse to act, and their resolutions will be dictated to them by their demagogues... and the violent men, who are the most forward to gratify those passions, will be their favorites. What is called the government of the people is in fact too often the arbitrary power of such men. Here, then, we have the faithful portrait of democracy.

The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected.

The all but unanimous judgment seems to be that we, the democracies, are just as responsible for the rise of the dictators as the dictatorships themselves, and perhaps more so.

By playing down to the idea of the common man, dogmatic political authority exploits him... So the ideal of innate aristocracy of which hour forefathers dreamed is betrayed for votes in the name of democracy.

You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify all the ill prophecies that were made of it - low, vulgar, meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, and flattering every base passion - and sneering at everything noble refined and truly national. The direct tyranny will come on by and by, after it shall have gratified the multitude with the spoil and ruin of the old institutions of the land.

Latin America is part of the world which was for many years condemned to the system of power where intimidation had more strength than the vote.

Where annual elections end, there slavery begins ... Humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.

History has shown that the masses have been quite receptive to the promises of authoritarians which are rarely if ever fulfilled.