H.L Mencken was right

In a July 26, 1920 article in the Baltimore Evening Sun, Mencken wrote about the difficulties of good men reaching national office when such campaigns must necessarily be conducted remotely:

The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men.

As democracy is perfected, the office represents,

more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.

We move toward a lofty ideal.

On some great and glorious day

the plain folks of the land

will reach their heart's desire at last,

and the White House will be adorned

by a downright moron.

----------

And so it has come to pass...