Capra

No matter when you tuned in, he was telling it like it is, for 25 straight hours with passion, insight, inspiration and empathy, like something out of a Frank Capra movie.

That is the audience-flattering message of American cinema at least since Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington": Good will eventually triumph over evil because of the innate virtue and common sense of the people.

That, as any connoisseur of black-and-white movies will tell you, is the fictional town in Frank Capra's famous feature It's A Wonderful Life.

Famously, the Frank Capra directed fantasy drama failed to break even when it was first released, but became a TV fixture after the rights to the film entered the public domain in 1974.

It is a movie about internet populism à la Frank Capra — if Mr. Smith went to Reddit.