“It Can’t Happen Here,” — Until it Does. A Review of the novel by Sinclair Lewis
In the 1935 political novel It Can’t Happen Here, author Sinclair Lewis paints a frightening realistic picture of how authoritarianism could fall over the United States. As we’ve watched the Trump administration rule over the past two years, there are some poignant similarities but also some key differences.
False populist Buzz Windrip wins the presidency on a simplistic and internally contradictory platform that includes giving $5000 in free money to every citizen (not that unlike the Alaska oil dividend of today.) He deflects economic anger and uncertainty onto blacks and Jews much like Donald Trump scapegoats Mexicans and Muslims to divert anger at billionaire tax dodging. There is jingoistic talk of toughness and young teens eager to prove their manhood by heading off to war. When protagonist Doremus Jessup, a liberal newspaper editor, warns local quarry owner Walt Tasbrough that Windrip will rule just like Mussolini and Hitler, Tasbrough replies “That couldn’t happen here in America, not possibly! We’re a country of freemen.” Tasbrough eventually winds up as a leading bureaucrat in the fascist regime.
The best parts of It Can’t Happen Here describe the personal foibles that individual Americans fall victim to in accepting, even embracing, a regime they fully know to be…
