There's really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that voting is ineffective and implies that real change is prevented by those in power.
H. L. Mencken's quote reflects a cynical view of the political system, asserting that the act of voting holds little significance in effecting real change. By claiming that if voting made a meaningful difference it would be prohibited, Mencken conveys a sense of distrust towards political processes and the existing power structures that may seek to maintain the status quo.
In practice
During a debate on the importance of civic engagement, you could use this quote to illustrate skepticism about the effectiveness of voting.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
It's too much show business and too much prompting, too much artificiality, and not really debates. They're rehearsed appearances.
Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen's faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs.
We have already given in example one effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose from the Executive to the Legislative body
The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern, some of them in our country and under our own eyes.
I don't think that people are disinterested or uninterested in politics. I think very often they are disengaged from the formal political process. To some extent they are suspicious or even despairing of formal politics as a means to give expression and effect to what they want.
The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.