Hobgoblins

Here’s a quote from H.L. Mencken:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

I’ve always been a bit amused by hobgoblins, having seen quite a few of them influence American pop culture firsthand. This isn’t to say that none of these scare stories have any basis in reality, or that I have always seen through the hype. However, it will be fun to maintain an official List of Hobgoblins that this millenial remembers. Here it is:

Nuclear Winter, Pollution, Japanese Manufacturing, Ozone Depletion, Saddam Hussein’s WMDs, Ecological Collapse, Skynet, Global Warming, Y2K, Terrorists, SARS, Russian Hackers, Nazi George Bush, Immigrants, Illuminati Bankers, Genetically Modified Food, Hyperinflation, Climate Change, Nazi Barack Obama, Ocean Acidification, Chinese Hackers, Nuclear Meltdowns, Bath Salts, Climate Disruption, Pre-Existing Conditions, ISIS Caliphate, Immigrants, Nazi Donald Trump, Russian Hackers, Immigrants, Nazi Donald Trump, The Deep State, “China”, Nazi Donald Trump, SARS-CoV-2…

The list approximates a chronology, and it will be updated.