Plus ca change, plus ca meme freakin' chose

Frank Capra was neither subtle nor wrong. The opening with the words being jackhammered off the cornerstone of the newspaper building tells you all you need to know. This movie was released in 1941 and aside from the old fashioned-telephones, men all wearing hats and the homeless not being as universally shunned as they are today, it could have come out last week.



Of course, if you replace the John Doe Clubs with the teabaggers and Gary Cooper with Glenn Beck you get the Bizarro World version in which a mean spirited demagogue encourages people to hate their neighbors and be just a little bit nastier to each other.

Addendum: As is often my mantra - what Driftglass said.