An Old Chestnut, Cracked

Lincoln has been proven wrong:
You can fool all the people
All of the time,
Or at least for staggered quadrenniums,
Fooled so deeply, so profoundly,
It boggles the rational human mind.
New generations, weaned on vidbits,
Can't seem to separate truth from lies;
It only takes a small claque of clamorers
To sway the mass of dopes and slanderers.
An evil vine has wrapped itself
Around the nation's wholesome neck;
It's poised to tighten and strangle us,
And with its lesioned tendrils wring
The last drops of goodness from our lives.
O destitute people, devoid of forethought,
O falsely prideful electorate
That bowed to the swindlers' trumpetries,
Glitzed up in patriot bunting and boast--
Beware, the venomous fangs behind
The viper's hypnotic, despotic gaze.