Not really no. Hitler eating sugar or liking Wagner is mostly independent of his political views, Mencken’s opposition to democracy was basically a linchpin of his reactionary political ideology. If you think they are unrelated, then why not quote Mussolini’s criticisms of democracy?
As an addendum, one also needs to consider the logical implications of that quote. If democracy is so bad, it would seem to follow there ought to be a “reform” in the system of government be it “merely” restricting the suffrage to a sufficiently enlightened minority (property qualifications? IQ testing for voters?) or handing over power to a technocratic bureaucratic class.
What really scares me is recent (apparent) terrorist activity. Even sane people start freaking out just a bit when bombs are planted, so with recent stuff in NYC, people start to align with the lunatics. So while the awful people are shouting slurs, more quiet voices may be adding a murmur of hatred.
And there will be a lot more of that as the elections approach. Trump literally said that he’s not “in the business of nation-building”, as in leaving Irak and Afghanistan without US support, which would mean a power vacuum ripe for Isis to take over.
Because as Igor would say: “Well, he was wrong wasn’t he?”, because it beats the alternatives. The point that you missed is that Mencken was like the blind squirrel that found a nut. It does happen that he was right on some items and we remember those.
You are also missing the whole point also of the fallacy you used, again, “Therefore people claim a thing is bad because bad people associate with it.” indeed the same thing that you did, the sugar item is there to make fun of how ridiculous this can get, but on on a more serious note the proper fallacy points to items like the Nazi’s campaigns against smoking. That the Germans were correct about, but those were dropped for several years thanks to the association with Hitler.
Mencken in reality just said in a different way what many founding fathers thought about direct democracy (most did not thought it was a good idea for that “tyranny of the majority” thing, that is why we are a representative democracy) and how they put, what they thought, were enough safeguards against what could happen.
It makes you wonder about the sizeable chunk of the population that doesn’t even bother to take part in the process. Would things be better if everyone voted, or worse?
One of the interesting social control features of democracy is it encourages you to blame your problems on your neighbors instead of a king or council of cardinals.
Almost certainly worse, but saying so is politically unpopular.
But isn’t America basically a center-right country? Real Americans are, at heart, conservative and deeply committed to Republican values? Why would you worry? I’m on the conservative wing of the extreme left, and it doesn’t scare me any, what’s your problem?
For starters, I might note that smoking bans are far less of a fundamental component of a political philosophy than one’s view on democracy. And again, if it’s okay to use Mencken’s quotes against democracy why aren’t people utilizing the anti-democratic quotes of Hitler, Mussolini, Evola, and other eminent fascist theorists and political philosophers, most of whom were superior thinkers compared to a merely talented journalist like HL Mencken? It seems to me that most people don’t want their views associated with such figures and that their admiration of Mencken mostly comes from a US History 101 viewpoint where Mencken was the great bourgeois liberal iconoclast who mocked the fundamentalists-a forerunner of Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris essentially when in reality his political philosophy was considerably more “interesting” then that.
Ftr, in any election between Mencken and Trump I would go for the less racist, misogynistic, and reactionary option-namely the New York real estate magnate.
Yes, as conservatives love to argue the Founding Fathers (with some exceptions such as Tom Paine) were suspicious of democracy because they were largely wealthy planters, lawyers, and merchants pursuing their class interests and thus fearful of the great unwashed deciding to vote to redistribute property. But for better or worse, the vision of America by the Founding Fathers as an oligarchic Anglo-Saxon Protestant republic with suffrage limited to white male property owners is dead and has been replaced by one considerably more democratic and egalitarian.
Since nonvoting Americans are disproportionately Democratic and left leaning on socioeconomic issues, the answer is obvious.
At heart, the Right know that is a myth they’ve invented themselves to think average Americans will actually pat themselves on the back and decide to vote against Medicare because it’s “unconstitutional” or whatever.
Not much good either:
I do not think that I would talk about Trump being an egalitarian.
Considering my intention wasn’t to defend Trump, the fact he quoted Trump is irrelevant. My point is that very few Dopers would knowingly do that and in fact they mocked Trump for doing so.
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I’m referring to the last two hundred years of American history where we’ve decided to expand the suffrage to the working-class, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and women as well as build a welfare state to reduce socioeconomic disparities.
The intention of this thread is indeed to not defend him.
And if Trump wins it just follows that they do not count as much. Not yet, but I do think this will eventually end making places like Florida and Texas out of the reach of the Republicans in presidential elections just like it did in California when a Republican governor decided to demonize the immigrants.
The Red & Blue States are artifacts of the Electoral College.
Look at a map from a recent election broken down by county & you see the reality is a bit more complex. Urban areas in every state tend Blue–sometimes surrounded by angry Red suburbs. Check it out.
I’m interpreting the quote ironically. Enough on the quote, ok?
Was anyone else shocked by actually hearing the unvarnished hatred voiced by individuals in the video clip?
Wowzers
This is what keeps me up at night: the nagging fear that we’re about three exploding trash cans away from putting a distended Circus Peanut into the Oval Office.
Terrorists, if I could just appeal to your humanity and compassion for all mankind, and ask that you please hold off for just a few more weeks— take a class! Ceramics, maybe. It’s relaxing, and you can make a nice conversation piece to blow up later.
I think we have fairly good evidence at this point that high-profile terror attacks don’t help Trump–Paris, Orlando, and San Bernadino had very little impact on his numbers–because:
[ul]
[li]His biggest liability is perception that he has the wrong temperament[/li][li]He always, always fucks up the politics of the aftermath [/li][li]People generally trust Clinton and Trump about equally on terrorism[/li][/ul]
After reading an article about the propaganda that ISIS is making, it is clear to me that they do want to see the whole thing end in an apocalyptic battle, hence my fear that -even if Americans would not fall for that and vote for Clinton just the same- the radicals do think that the USA electing Trump will make their violent end (with US troops on the ground) to be more likely. And they will use the hatred of Trump in an attempt to move more Muslims to join them.
So, more terror attacks are likely to come because they do think they will get the outcome they want from the election.
For all the idiocy of Bush the lesser, he at least was brave enough to recognize that doing what Trump proposes to do with Muslims in the USA would make things worse.
Bingo. Trumpist xenophobia and apocalyptic terrorist death-cult reinforce each other very well.