The More Things Change, the More They Stink

 

"Remember our war hysteria, when we called sauerkraut 'Liberty cabbage' and somebody actually proposed calling German measles 'Liberty measles'? And wartime censorship of honest papers? Bad as Russia! Remember our kissing the--well, the feet of Billy Sunday, the million-dollar evangelist...Remember when the hick legislators in certain states, in obedience to William Jennings Bryan, who learned his biology from his pious old grandma, set up shop as scientific experts and made the whole world laugh itself sick by forbidding the teaching of evolution?"

"It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis, published in 1935 (via C&L)

Sinclair Lewis also said;

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."