Mencken, HL

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</div><div>HL Mencken’s reputation has suffered in recent years as people have realized that his <a title="bigotry" href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/04/20/the-h-l-mencken-show/" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">bigotry</a> extended far beyond his famous contempt for Biblical literalists, but no one has revoked his reputation as a wordsmith. When he arrived in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925 to cover the Scopes “Monkey” Trial, he <a title="claimed" href="https://famous-trials.com/scopesmonkey/2132-menckenaccount" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">claimed</a> to be pleasantly surprised by the inhabitants:<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">The town, I confess, greatly surprised me. I expected to find a squalid Southern village, with darkies snoozing on the horse blocks, pigs rooting under the houses and the inhabitants full of hookworm and malaria. What I found was a country town of charm and even beauty….</blockquote>But this didn’t mean he had any respect for their point of view on the teaching of evolution. Remarking on the influence of prosecuting lawyer <a title="Williams Jennings Bryan" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryan" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Williams Jennings Bryan</a>, Mencken showed his true feelings:<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">He has these hillbillies locked up in his pen and he knows it. His brand is on them. He is at home among them. Since his earliest days, indeed, his chief strength has been among the folk of remote hills and forlorn and lonely farms. Now with his political aspirations all gone to pot, he turns to them for religious consolations. They understand his peculiar imbecilities. His nonsense is their ideal of sense. When he deluges them with his theologic bilge they rejoice like pilgrims disporting in the river Jordan…</blockquote>In other words, Donald Trump is not the first American politician to hold these folks in his thrall. But, for former Bush speechwriter <a title="Michael Gerson" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/evangelicals-have-been-reshaped-into-the-image-of-trump-himself/2019/10/28/f37f5154-f9c0-11e9-ac8c-8eced29ca6ef_story.html" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Michael Gerson</a>, Trump’s influence is far more problematic. His most recent concern arose after he spent some time perusing the results in the Public Religion Research Institute’s <a title="2019 American Values Survey" href="https://www.prri.org/research/fractured-nation-widening-partisan-polarization-and-key-issues-in-2020-presidential-elections/" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">2019 American Values Survey</a> and discovered some things that trouble him.<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">Republicans who are WEPs [white evangelical protestants] are the most likely group to say that immigrants are invading America and changing its culture. More than 90 percent of WEPs favor more restrictive immigration policies. They support the policy of family separation at the border more strongly than other religious groups and more strongly than Americans as a whole.How have we come to the point that American evangelicals are significantly crueler in their attitude toward migrant children than the national norm? The answer is simple enough. Rather than shaping President Trump’s agenda in Christian ways, they have been reshaped into the image of Trump himself.</blockquote>Here are some more findings that make Gerson uncomfortable:<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">According to the PRRI poll, nearly two-thirds of WEPs deny that Trump has damaged the dignity of his office. Ponder that a moment. Well over half of this group is willing to deny a blindingly obvious, entirely irrefutable, manifestly clear reality because it is perceived as being critical of their leader. Forty-seven percent of WEPs say that Trump’s behavior makes no difference to their support. Thirty-one percent say there is almost nothing that Trump could do to forfeit their approval. This is preemptive permission for any violation of the moral law or the constitutional order. It is not support; it is obeisance.An extraordinary 99 percent of Republican WEPs oppose the impeachment and removal of the president — which probably puts me in the smallest political minority I have ever had the honor of occupying.</blockquote>During the Scopes Trial, William Jennings Bryan’s political heyday was behind him. He had tried and failed three times to become the president of the United States, and he would ultimately die six days after the conclusion of the case.  But, for Mencken, he was still a powerful and charismatic spokesman who commanded the obeisance of his followers:...</div><div></div></div><div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/23/white_nationalism_in_the_white_house">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/23/white_nationalism_in_the_white_house</a><span style="color: rgb(25, 31, 36); font-family: Roboto, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Multiple people close to Donald Trump have direct ties to white supremacists. Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, has admitted he recently hosted white nationalist publisher, Peter Brimelow, at a birthday celebration at his home. Brimelow founded the anti-immigrant website <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(25, 31, 36); font-family: Roboto, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">VDARE<span style="color: rgb(25, 31, 36); font-family: Roboto, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">.com. Meanwhile, Trump’s speechwriter Darren Beattie was fired last Friday as revelations surfaced that he had spoken at a conference alongside prominent white nationalists, including Brimelow, in 2016. Beattie was a panelist at the H.L. Mencken Club conference, an event the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a gathering of “white nationalists and pseudo-academic and academic racists.” We speak with Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center.</div><div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/meanwhile-donald-trumps-white-nationalist-white-house-still-humming-along">https://www.alternet.org/meanwhile-donald-trumps-white-nationalist-white-house-still-humming-along</a></div><div>
</div><div> Trump loves to call nonwhite immigrants and refugees as "vermin" or "invaders" and to suggest they are the "worst people." Yet he has no such strong words for the white nationalists and other racists prevalent throughout his administration.As CNN reported on Sunday, a policy aide and speechwriter named Darren Beattie "has left the White House" after it was revealed he had spoken at the 2016 H.L. Mencken Club Conference. Mencken represents an unfortunate chapter in American journalism: He was a prominent satirist, columnist and critic of the early 20th century, whose book "The American Language" marked the first serious attempt to study English as spoken in the United States. Mencken's posthumously published diaries, however, made clear that he was an ardent racist and anti-Semite, which has made him something of a hero to the far right.The Mencken Club's annual conference, launched in 2008, has attracted a range of "well-known white nationalists," the CNN report continues, including the briefly famous Richard Spencer. "The <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160915214132/http:/hlmenckenclub.org:80/2016-conference" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">schedule for the 2016 conference listed</a> panels and speeches by white nationalist Peter Brimelow and two writers, John Derbyshire and Robert Weissberg, who were both fired in 2012 from the conservative magazine National Review for espousing racist views."<div style="margin-bottom: 20px;">After CNN inquired about Beattie's involvement with the 2016 Mencken Club conference, the White House apparently asked the network "to hold off on the story for several days last week." It's not clear why CNN complied with that request. Beattie's email address at the White House was still working on Friday evening, the network reported, but "was no longer active by Saturday.""Mr. Beattie no longer works at the White House," White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told CNN on Friday. "We don't comment on personnel matters."As for the semi-disgraced Darren Beattie, he told CNN he had indeed spoken at the 2016 Mencken gathering and had nothing to be ashamed of. <blockquote>"In 2016 I attended the Mencken conference in question and delivered a stand-alone, academic talk titled 'The Intelligentsia and the Right.' I said nothing objectionable and stand by my remarks completely," he told CNN's KFile in an email on Saturday. "It was the honor of my life to serve in the Trump Administration. I love President Trump, who is a fearless American hero, and continue to support him one hundred percent. I have no further comment."</blockquote>Beattie is not alone. There are many known or obvious white nationalists (which is just a more polite or palatable term for white supremacists) in or around Donald Trump's White House.Stephen Miller, Donald Trump's senior adviser, has been <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/06/20/why-wont-the-mainstream-media-tell-the-truth-about-racist-ghoul-stephen-miller/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">closely associated with the aforementioned Richard Spencer</a>, perhaps America's best-known white supremacists. Miller himself has a long and public pattern of racism and bigotry towards nonwhites. His beliefs and behavior are so repugnant that his own uncle rebuked him in a scathing public letter published by Politico last week.Steve Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News, the self-described "platform of the alt-right," <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/02/14/donald-trumps-white-nationalist-genius-bar-steve-bannon-stephen-miller-michael-decius-anton-and-beyond/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">previously served as Trump's senior White House strategist</a> and remains highly influential in Republican politics.  He recently met with far-right groups in Europe and encouraged them to treat accusations of racism as "a badge of honor."Michael Anton, one of Trump's senior national security advisers, is the author of the <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/02/12/a-white-nationalist-fantasy-donald-trumps-america-is-not-made-for-you-and-me/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">infamous "Flight 93 Election" manifesto,</a> which explicitly argued that immigration from nonwhite countries and "multiculturalism" are a threat to the West and American values and culture. Anton channels his white nationalist ideology -- as do Miller and Bannon -- under the cover of such Trumpian labels as "populism" and "economic nationalism."In addition to the heretofore little-known Darren Beattie, there are other people in around the Trump White House, including <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/18/politics/kfile-carl-higbie-on-the-radio/index.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Carl Higbie</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/11/16/republican-appointee-resigns-from-the-dhs-after-past-comments-about-blacks-muslims-come-to-light/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5a62a9d089bd" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Jamie Johnson</a> and <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-william-bradford-deleted-tweets_us_594d0955e4b05c37bb75d163" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">William Bradford</a>, who appear to hold white nationalist and overtly racist views.Attorney General Jeff Sessions has actively rolled back civil rights protections for African-Americans and other nonwhites, and has advanced a strategy of voter suppression. He actively encourages police thuggery and brutality by refusing to hold law enforcement officers accountable for their behavior, and is using the Department of Justice and the courts to argue that white people -- not black and brown people -- are the actual victims of racism in America.And of course Donald Trump has repeatedly displayed his white supremacist views in both his public and private life. He uses violent, eliminationist rhetoric to describe nonwhite immigrants, migrants and refugees; says that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who rioted in Charlottesville included "very fine people"; has called calls black women "dogs" and suggested that black athletes who protest racism should be deported. Let's not forget that he launched his political career as a prominent advocate of the racist "birther" conspiracy theory that sought to undermine the legitimacy of Barack Obama, the United States' first black president.Contrary to what Donald Trump's enablers in the news media might argue, Darren Beattie's presence in the Trump administration was not a failure of "vetting" by a disorganized or inexperienced White House. It was a statement of purpose and principles more than anything else: <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">As America's first "white" president</a>, Trump naturally attracts white nationalists and other racists into his orbit.Indeed, racism almost seems to be a qualification for working in Trump's administration. It is empowering a much broader effort to severely limit the civil rights and human rights of nonwhites in America. The ultimate goal of the Trump administration's "white strategy" is to "make America great again" through racial authoritarianism; in other words, to protect and elevate white power with the ultimate goal of breaking and then destroying the country's post-civil rights era multiracial democracy.To that end, Trump and his allies and enablers are doing much more than nurturing what W.E.B. Du Bois famously described as "the psychological wages of whiteness." They are installing a white power regime that new research shows is supported by at least 11 million Americans, and likely many more.When Trump took control of the White House he chose (with <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/22/andrew-jackson-donald-trump-216493" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Bannon's encouragement)</a> to <a href="https://time.com/4649081/andrew-jackson-donald-trump-portrait/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">replace a portrait of the Statue of Liberty</a> with one of Andrew Jackson. To casual or generous observers this was a reference Trump's alleged populist" appeal to the "white working class" voters who purportedly gave him the presidency. But as is so often true, the deeper truths behind Trump and Bannon's choice are more revealing.Andrew Jackson led an <a href="https://glc.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Black%20Seminoles%20.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ethnic cleansing campaign against the Seminoles</a> as well as the former black slaves in Florida. He was also a <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/05/03/trumps-historical-ignorance-reveals-a-truth-the-party-of-lincoln-has-become-the-party-of-jefferson-davis/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">literal "slave driver"</a>who bought and sold black people as human property. "<a href="https://amzn.to/2MpAQvZ" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The American Slave Coast</a>," an award-winning book by Ned and Constance Sublette, explains this history:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Failing to sell the slaves himself, Jackson drove the unsold slaves back to Nashville, taking the unheard-of step of driving a coffle [or a chained train] of slaves from the destination back to the point of origin, through Choctaw and Chickasaw territory. . . . Given the documentation of this episode that exists, it appears safe to say that Andrew Jackson is the only U.S. president that we know of who personally drove a slave coffle. But then, Jackson was also the first president to have been a merchant.</blockquote>Adding to his ignominious legacy, Jackson also ordered the "Indian Removal Act," one of the most infamous actions in American history. People of the Cherokee Nation were forced from their lands east of the Mississippi and forcibly marched on the "Trail of Tears" hundreds of miles away to reservations in Oklahoma. At least 4,000 indigenous people died as a result of this forced march.So it is altogether too perfect that President Andrew Jackson's portrait now looks down at Donald Trump in the Oval Office. He is a perfect spirit guide for the 45th president of the United States.</div><div></div></div></div><div>===</div>