When William Jennings Bryan died, in 1925, H.L. Mencken wrote the most devastating obituary of an American politician you’ll ever read—and that includes Hunter S. Thompson’s farewell to Nixon. All you need to do is substitute “Trump” for “Bryan” to see how snug the fit will be when Trump takes his permanent leave.
Bryan was a vulgar and common man, a cad undiluted. He was ignorant, bigoted, self-seeking, blatant and dishonest. His career brought him in contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses. It was hard to believe, watching him at Dayton, that he had traveled, that he had been received in civilized societies, that he had been a high officer of state. He seemed only a poor clod like those around him, deluded by a childish theology, full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, all human dignity, all beauty, all fine and noble things. He was a peasant come home to the dung-pile. Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not.
Many thanks for reminding us how Mencken could cut to the chase. In our modern commonwealth where politeness seems to be the currency, we forget how honesty is not just the best policy but a hell of a lot of fun to read.
I can’t help thinking that one of the things that skewed the exit polls of this last election was the dishonesty of the Evangelicals who told the eager pollsters complete nonsense since this seemed at the time to be what those liberal pollsters wanted to hear. It’s pretty well known among northern expats in the South that as long as the greater truth is that you’re doing the lying for Jesus, it’s OK. Politeness dictates that you not hurt the feelings of the benighted other.