"It Can't Happen Here"

BOOK REVIEW

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.” (Sinclair Lewis)

In the 1920s, best-selling American author Sinclair Lewis won both the Pulitzer and the Nobel Prize for works like Elmer Gantry, a novel which exposed the hypocrisy of evangelical Christian movements and their charismatic, opportunistic leaders. 

In the 1930s Dorothy Thompson (Lewis’s wife) was a pioneering foreign correspondent covering the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany, where she witnessed the advent of storm troopers, concentration camps, and the suspension of civil liberties. She interviewed Adolf Hitler after his rise to political power under the banner of “Make Germany Great Again,” but was subsequently banished for criticizing Hitler, “a crime in the reigning cult in Germany,” she wrote, “which says Mr. Hitler is a Messiah sent by God to save the German people.” Back in America she published a series of articles exposing the demagoguery, lies, and brutality of these fascist regimes and warned that, amid the political upheavals, societal anxieties, and economic uncertainties of depression-era America, it could happen here too.

Having heard the details of fascist methods from his wife, Lewis wrote, revised, and published It Can’t Happen Here (Doubleday, 1935) in a 4-month burst of simmering passion during the summer of 1935. His prophetic warning - that American democratic institutions were fragile and vulnerable to the same fascist movements that were on the ascent in Europe - became a runaway bestseller, the most successful of all his books. Part of its success lay in the recognition that the conditions for fascism to take root in America were already in place: anxious social, economic and political times, charismatic leaders with populist slogans and simple solutions, sycophantic enablers and apologists, widespread dissemination of lies and disinformation, perennial scapegoats, and violent armed pseudo-militias. And all swathed in patriotic flag-waving and hyper-nationalism. But above all else, Lewis felt the greatest opening for fascism in America lay in the complacency and ignorance of the public who believed that “it can’t happen here.”

But in 1935 it was happening here. Louisiana Governor and Senator Huey (“Kingfish") Long had ridden a wave of populist promises (“Every Man a King”) to become a serious presidential contender, with tens of thousands of his “Share-Our-Wealth” clubs established across the nation. Then there was Father Coughlin, a radio talk-show pioneer, who pumped out pro-fascist propaganda and simmering anti-Jewish diatribes (“the cause of all your problems”) to a weekly mass audience of up to 40 million spellbound listeners. 

Reflecting the political ethos of the day, It Can’t Happen Here depicts the fictional rise of Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, a charismatic and power-hungry demagogue who glorifies himself in huge rallies and rides a populist platform honoring the “Forgotten Men” of America, fomenting fear of “foreigners,” railing against the “lies” of the press, and promising simple solutions to the complex problems of the times. All the while, bombastic Bishop Prang (a stand-in for Father Coughlin) provides the moral authority that seduces America’s intolerant but vote-rich religious right. Once installed, President Windrip places his sycophants in positions of power from which they incrementally dismantle democracy and undermine the institutions of government - Judges must swear loyalty oaths, political opponents are locked up, blacks and women lose the vote - all under the guise of making God-fearing Christian America “the greatest Race on the face of this old Earth.”

Lewis’s protagonist in the novel is Doremus Jessup, a modest small-town Vermont newspaper editor who tries to raise the alarm in the face of mockery, apathy, and denial (“it can’t happen here”). By novel’s end it is too late; America has fallen for the con and voted away its democracy. But at the core of Lewis’s concern was the complacency of the American public, their denialism, their cowardice in the face of Windrip’s armed gangs of fanatical supporters, their willingness (almost need) to be manipulated by a charismatic, authoritarian hero. It Can’t Happen Here is a 1935 fictional account of how, in troubled times, American democracy could transform itself into a violent, fascist state, all wrapped up in the red-white-&-blue of fervent patriotic (“America First”) hyper-nationalism. Perhaps arch-conservative William Randolph Hearst’s scathing reaction to Lewis’s book is worth noting:

“Whenever you hear a prominent American called a Fascist, you can usually make up your mind that the man is simply a LOYAL CITIZEN WHO STANDS FOR AMERICANISM.” (William Randolph Hearst, 1935)

Almost ninety years later, the parallels to today’s political environment are inescapable; only the names have changed. For charlatan populist President Windrip substitute Donald Trump; for Windrip’s lying, opportunistic enablers, apologists and dirty-tricksters substitute Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, and Roger Stone; for Bishop Prang’s loathsome propaganda substitute Tucker Carlson’s sycophantic invective; and for Windrip’s armed citizen-militias substitute today’s Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Different names and times, but the same playbook. 

Lewis’s prophetic 1935 warning depicted the fragility of America’s democracy, and how easily - with the right circumstances and players - it could devolve into a violent, un-democratic fascist regime. But Lewis’s tale is no longer simply speculative fiction from the 1930s. Today, the roots of fascism are spreading unchecked through much of America while a complacent, self-absorbed nation watches Sunday Night Football and Dancing with the Stars and cares more about this week’s price of gas than preserving its 250-year-old democracy.

Fascism not only can happen here, it is happening here, championed by a dishonest charlatan leader, proclaimed in mindlessly repeated slogans (“Lock Her Up,” “Build the Wall,” “Drain the Swamp,” “U-S-A”), propagated by opportunistic apologists and enablers, and propelled forward by armed “patriotic” thugs (Jan. 6) - all wrapped up in the American flag. And, as Lewis feared most, made increasingly possible by a complacent public ready to literally vote away its democracy. Who says it can’t happen here?