Of Sheeple and Men

"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental -- men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack, or count himself lost. His one aim is to disarm suspicion, to arouse confidence in his orthodoxy, to avoid challenge.

If he is a man of convictions, of enthusiasm, or self-respect, it is cruelly harder."

--H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920