… is from page 132 of the 2009 edition of H.L. Mencken’s 1926 Notes on Democracy; by “democrat,” Mencken here means not a member of a major U.S. political party but, rather, anyone who puts his or her trust in majority-rule decision making:
The democrat, despite his strong opinion to the contrary, is seldom a good citizen. In that sense, as in most others, he falls distressfully short. His eagerness to bring all his fellow-citizens, and especially all those who are superior to him, into accord with his own dull and docile way of thinking, and to force it upon them when they resist, leads him inevitably into acts of unfairness, oppression and dishonour which, if all men were alike guilty of them, would quickly break down that mutual trust and confidence upon which the very structure of civilized society rests.
