If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
Interpretation
This quote critiques politicians who exploit and deceive their constituents for personal gain.
H. L. Mencken's quote suggests that a politician will go to any extent to please the desires of their constituents, even if it means promising morally questionable actions. It highlights the idea that some political leaders prioritize their survival and advancement over ethical considerations, serving whatever appetites their supporters may have, sometimes at the expense of fundamental morality.
In practice
During a political debate, a candidate quoted Mencken to highlight the insincerity often found in political promises.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
Politics is who gets what, when, how.
The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too.
Governments that use violence to stop democratic development will not earn themselves respite forever. They will pay an increasingly high price for actions which they can no longer hide from the world with ease, and will find themselves on the wrong side of history.
Every Senator in this Chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This Chamber reeks of blood.
A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them.
Politics is a rough and tumble business, and yet there seems to be an effort by the commentariat to sanitise American politics to some type of high-level Victorian debating society.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.