There's no question that if I could bring one American back to life for an evening of good food, stiff drink, and sterling conversation, that person would unquestionably be Mencken (1880-1956).

Mencken was a Baltimore newspaper reporter, magazine editor, literary critic and expert on what he called "the American language." But he was and remains, in my view, above all, this country's unmatched observer and recorder of politics. So sit back and feast on this small sampling of intellectually nutritious and tasty tidbits of Mencken's political wisdom.

As Mencken observed him, the typical politician is a "merchant of delusions," a "pumper-up of popular fears and rages."

The politician is seldom to be trusted:

What is a political campaign save a concerted effort to turn out a set of politicians who are admittedly bad and put in a set who are thought to be better? The former assumption, I believe, is always sound; the latter is just as certainly false. For if experience teaches us anything at all it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. His very existence, indeed, is a standing subversion of the public good in every rational sense. He is not one who serves the common weal; he is simply one who preys upon the commonwealth. It is to the interest of all the rest of us to hold down his powers to an irreducible minimum and to reduce his compensation to nothing; it is to his interest to augment his powers at all hazards, and to make his compensation all the traffic will bear.

But ours is a democratic republic where We the People choose our leaders freely in fair elections. Doesn't the need to secure a majority of votes ensure the victory of candidates, most of whom are honorable?

No:

The only way to success in American public life lies in flattering and kowtowing to the mob. A candidate for office, even the highest, must either adopt its current manias en bloc or convince it hypocritically that he has done so while cherishing reservations in petto. The result is that only two sorts of men stand any chance whatever of getting into actual control of affairs – first, glorified mob-men who genuinely believe what the mob believes, and secondly, shrewd fellows who are willing to make any sacrifice of conviction and self-respect in order to hold their jobs.