In 1936 William Lemke, a pro-New Deal Republican from ND ran for POTUS as a 3rd Party populist, allied with antisemite Father Coughlin. Richard Neuberger, a young Oregonian, went to hear Lemke talk and noted the gap between Lemke's "glistening generalities" & the crowd response. 
Neuberger noted how prominent Republicans, in their efforts to defeat FDR, played plausibly deniable footsie with those on the far right who sought to marshal the "basest emotions" of "fear and prejudice" for political gain, thinking they could control those emotions.
Neuberger, a progressive Democrat, would eventually win election to the US Senate from Oregon in 1954. Sadly, he died at the age of 47 in 1960. google.com/books/edition/…
In 1936 Neuberger expressed pleasure that the far right, populist illiberalism he saw rearing its ugly head was buried "beneath an avalanche of ballots" in that year's elections. That hope springs eternal, but there's a difference between what we hope for and what we get.
SPOILER ALERT: When I read this paragraph written in 1936, I immediately thought of the ending of The Plot Against America in which we see far right populist illiberalism tossing "an avalanche of ballots" onto a bonfire.
The 3 things that are different today than in 1940 is that a) all of the populist, far right illiberals have lined up behind one of our two major parties, b) that party has shown little inclination to push back against them and c) that party is unabashedly pro-election-fraud.
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