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I recently watched “A Face in the Crowd” for the umpteenth time.

I had a better reason than procrastination to rewatch Elia Kazan’s brilliant 1957 film exploring populism in the television age. It was homework. I was asked to discuss it with Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz at the just-concluded TCM Film Festival in Los Angeles. As a pundit and an author, I do a lot of public speaking. But I don’t really do a lot of cool public speaking, so this was a treat.

With that not-very-humble brag out of the way, I had a depressing realization watching it this time.

“A Face in the Crowd” tells the story of a charming drifter with a dark side named Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, played brilliantly by Andy Griffith. A singer with the gift for gab, Rhodes takes off on radio but quickly segues to the brand-new medium of television. He becomes a national sensation, and political kingmaker, by forming a deep connection with the masses, particularly among the rural and working class. His core audience is made up of people with a grievance. “Everybody that’s got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle,” as Rhodes puts it.

The film’s climax (spoiler alert) comes when Rhodes’ manager and spurned lover, Marcia, turns on the microphone during the credit roll at the end of a segment of “Cracker Barrel,” his national TV show. Rhodes tells his entourage what he really thinks of the “morons” in his audience. “Shucks, I can take chicken fertilizer and sell it to them for caviar. I can make them eat dog food, and they’ll think it’s steak ... Good night, you stupid idiots.”

It was a canonical “hot mic” moment in American........

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