No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people

The quotation “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people” is actually a paraphrase of a longer discourse by the Bard of Baltimore on that subject.

Mencken — that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people — and applied it to politics.

Mencken’s observation that “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”