Politics Under Democracy, H.L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926, pp. 41-44.

Fear remains the chiefest of them. The demagogues, i.e., the professors of mob psychology, who flourish in democratic states are well aware of the fact, and make it the corner-stone of their exact and puissant science. Politics under democracy consists almost wholly of the discovery, chase and scotching of bugaboos. The statesman becomes, in the last analysis, a mere witch-hunter, a glorified smeller and snooper, eternally chanting “Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum!” It has been so in the United States since the earliest days. [Read more…]