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Life & Wisdom Quote by H. L. Mencken

"Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses"

About this Quote

Mencken doesn’t merely distrust democracy; he treats it as a civic religion whose rituals have replaced thought with piety. Calling it “a form of worship” is the setup: he’s framing voting, party loyalty, and patriotic faith as catechism, not deliberation. The punchline lands in zoological insult, but it’s engineered, not random. “Jackasses” aren’t just stupid; they’re stubborn, self-satisfied, and easily herded. “Jackals” aren’t noble predators; they’re scavengers, opportunists, political hyenas feeding on the crowd’s appetite. The sting is mutual: the masses degrade themselves by revering leaders who are, in Mencken’s telling, contemptible precisely because they know how to perform contempt.

The subtext is that democracy doesn’t elevate public life; it incentivizes the worst people to become experts in pleasing the worst instincts. Mencken’s target isn’t a specific policy so much as the psychology of mass politics: voters want comfort, certainty, and an enemy; politicians learn to provide it, then call the transaction “self-government.” His cynical brilliance is to describe this as worship rather than fraud, because worship is voluntary. The crowd isn’t merely tricked; it participates, begging to be reassured.

Context matters: Mencken wrote in an era of booming mass media, machine politics, Prohibition moralism, and rising populist spectacle. His sarcasm reads like an early diagnosis of the attention economy: democracy, he implies, doesn’t fail by accident. It fails because it rewards those who can turn resentment into reverence and call it virtue.

Quote Details

TopicSarcastic
Source
Later attribution: Ethics and Professionalism (J. S. H. Gildenhuys, 2004) modern compilation
Text match: 95.67%   Provider: Google Books
Evidence:
... Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses. H. L. Mencken Participation through proportional representation Many so - called political experts 41.
Other candidates (2)
Notes on democracy (Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis), 1956) primary53.3%
y democracy alas is also a form of theology and shows all the immemorial stigmata confronted by
H. L. Mencken (H. L. Mencken) compilation46.7%
bly lonely liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men it is the exclusive possession of
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Mencken, H. L. (2026, February 7). Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/democracy-is-also-a-form-of-worship-it-is-the-7461/

Chicago Style
Mencken, H. L. "Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses." FixQuotes. February 7, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/democracy-is-also-a-form-of-worship-it-is-the-7461/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses." FixQuotes, 7 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/democracy-is-also-a-form-of-worship-it-is-the-7461/. Accessed 28 Mar. 2026.

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Democracy: Worship of Jackals by Jackasses - H.L. Mencken
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About the Author

H. L. Mencken

H. L. Mencken (September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956) was a Writer from USA.

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