Doremus Jessup, so incongruous an observer, watching Senator Windrip from so humble a Boetia, could not explain his power of bewitching large audiences. The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his "ideas" almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a travelling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store.

-Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here, 1935


.