Writing through his character, Pip, in Great Expectations, Charles Dickens, who knew a thing or three about what can go wrong for the lowfolk in a democracy, wrote the following:
Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but she had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.
I cannot keep that pristine passage in my mind without conjuring up the image of our U.S. Congressfolks awkwardly trying to sweep all of our fiscal problems (that they have created) under the proverbial rug while the voter's are off-stage singing in a drowsy chorus:
Mrs. Joe, the poor old shrew,
she just got her just due.
Hangin' chads by fall begone,
and lo you 'warmints' all will too.
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Later, upon further delving into Dickens' masterpiece, I came across the following palaver between Pip and his would be paramour, Estella, concerning the merits of a certain Speaker of the House and his ancestry:
"Well," said she.
"You know he is as ungainly within, as without. A deficient, ill-tempered, lowering, stupid fellow."
"Well," said she.
"You know he has nothing to recommend him but money, and a ridiculous roll of addle-headed predecessors; now don't you?"
"Well," said she again; and each time she said it, she opened her lovely eyes the wider.
