Politics & Power Quote by H. L. Mencken

Mencken isn’t describing politics as messy; he’s describing it as a business model. The line lands because it refuses to romanticize “public safety” as a neutral goal. Safety is the product, and fear is the marketing strategy. By calling the threats “hobgoblins,” he doesn’t just say they’re false; he infantilizes them, casting political rhetoric as a bedtime story told to grown adults who still reach for the nightlight.

The parenthetical aside - “and hence clamorous to be led to safety” - is pure Mencken: a scalpel wrapped in a smirk. He’s not only accusing leaders of cynicism; he’s accusing the public of complicity. “Clamorous” suggests panic with a moral edge, the crowd demanding authority, not resisting it. In this framing, power doesn’t always have to be seized. It can be begged for.

Context matters: Mencken wrote through the churn of World War I propaganda, the first Red Scare, Prohibition-era moral crusades, and a rising American talent for turning social anxiety into policy. His skepticism wasn’t abstract; it was earned by watching institutions manufacture consensus by naming enemies, policing “degeneracy,” and treating dissent as contagion.

What makes the sentence stick is its rhythm of accumulation: “endless series” implies a conveyor belt of emergencies, each one replacing the last before anyone can ask whether the previous monster was real. Mencken’s subtext is bleakly contemporary: a frightened public is easier to govern, and fear - unlike problems - never has to be solved.