Actually, he was writing on the 1920 Presidential election, but it's nice to see some things never change (they only get bigger, more expensive, and more entrenched in our legal system):
In other lands, at worst, there are at least intelligible issues, coherent ideas, salient personalities. Somebody says something, and somebody replies....Here, having perfected democracy, we lift the whole combat to symbolism, to transcendentalism, to metaphysics. Here we load a palpably tin cannon with blank cartridges loaded with talcum powder, and so let fly. Here one may howl over the show without any uneasy reminder that this is serious, and that some one may be hurt. I hold that this elevation of politics to the plane of undiluted comedy is peculiarly American, that nowhere else on this disreputable ball has the art of the sham-battle been developed to such fineness.
Alright, show's over, folks. Let's all breathe a sigh of relief, pat ourselves on the back for voting, complain or gloat on social media, and let our elected officials breathe their own sigh of relief. They've done their job; now they get to rest for 4-6 years.