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Here’s a letter to USA Today:
Jonah Goldberg might be correct that young Americans are today much less spellbound by Barack Obama than they were in 2008 (“To Obama’s chagrin, young voters get serious [2],” Oct. 7). But I wonder if the perverse instincts that prompted such rapturous devotion in the first place are really disappearing. A feature of the national character that H.L. Mencken diagnosed in 1919 likely remains no less vibrant today, for it appeared as recently as two years ago: “We are, in fact, a nation of evangelists; every third American devotes himself to improving and lifting up his fellow citizens, usually by force; the messianic delusion is our national disease.”*
Barack Obama is only the most recent symptom of this ridiculous and dangerous malady.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux* H.L. Mencken, Prejudices: A Selection [3] (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 7-8.