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Can It Happen Here?
I’d never read Sinclair Lewis’s half-satirical novel about Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, a populist American president who seizes control of the government and imposes a Nazi-like totalitarianism. It Can’t Happen Here was written in 1935. Reviewers have traditionally viewed it as a character study of Huey Long. I’d never bothered to read it because I’d always heard it wasn’t Lewis’s best book — and I still haven’t read Babbitt, so I didn’t see why a less-acclaimed Lewis book should be at the top of my list. Besides, I figured, it can’t happen here.
But so many people have been talking about the book lately that I figured I’d give it a try. Also, I have a deadline, which means nothing could be more urgent than reading It Can’t Happen Here from cover to cover, immediately. Do you have a chore you’d rather put off until tomorrow? You can read the whole book online here.
Long wasn’t the only American figure on Lewis’s mind. His was also the age of Father Charles Coughlin, one of the first political figures to use radio to reach a mass audience — his weekly program reached 30 million listeners. Coughlin had initially supported FDR, but by 1934 was denouncing him as a tool of Wall Street, someone in bed with “capitalists and Jewish conspirators.” His slogans have now come back into vogue, and I don’t think anyone remembers where or why they first entered the American political lexicon: “Less care for internationalism and more concern for national prosperity!” “America First!”
Change the players a little bit (not much, though) and the following words could be from the present-day election campaign: “While we sympathize with the Serbian or the Russian, with the Jew in Germany or the Christian in Russia, the major portion of our sympathy is extended to our dispossessed farmer, our disconsolate laborers who are being crushed at this moment while the spirit of internationalism runs rampant in the corridors of the Capitol, hoping to participate in setting the world aright while chaos clamors at our doors.” …”We shall barter our sovereignty as a free, independent nation or accept the decisions of a World Court as a super-nation to manage our affairs” …
Coughlin’s newspaper was likewise published with a strangely contemporary title: Social Justice.
Two weeks after Kristallnacht, Coughlin argued that the Jews had it coming because communists had killed Christians in Russia: “Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted:” In Lewis’s novel, Coughlin is loosely disguised as “Bishop Prang.” … “There was a theory around some place that Prang was only the humble voice of his vast organization, ‘The League of Forgotten Men.”
You can watch the real Coughlin here:
Huey Long was assassinated in September 1935. Coughlin’s isolationism and anti-Semitism became more virulent throughout the 1930s; when the US entered the war, Roosevelt, working with the Vatican, forced his show off the air.
Lewis introduces us to the fictional Buzz Windrip thus:
Windrip caused the building of impressive highroads and of consolidated country schools; he made the state buy tractors and combines and lend them to the farmers at cost. He was certain that some day America would have vast business dealings with the Russians and, though he detested all Slavs, he made the State University put in the first course in the Russian language that had been known in all that part of the West. His most original invention was quadrupling the state militia and rewarding the best soldiers in it with training in agriculture, aviation, and radio and automobile engineering.
The militiamen considered him their general and their god, and when the state attorney general announced that he was going to have Windrip indicted for having grafted $200,000 of tax money, the militia rose to Buzz Windrip’s orders as though they were his private army and, occupying the legislative chambers and all the state offices, and covering the streets leading to the Capitol with machine guns, they herded Buzz’s enemies out of town.
He took the United States Senatorship as though it were his manorial right, and for six years, his only rival as the most bouncing and feverish man in the Senate had been the late Huey Long of Louisiana.
Windrip is the author of one “lone book, the Bible of his followers, part biography, part economic program, and part plain exhibitionistic boasting, called Zero Hour–Over the Top.” Pull quote:
I want to stand up on my hind legs and not just admit but frankly holler right out that we’ve got to change our system a lot, maybe even change the whole Constitution (but change it legally, and not by violence) to bring it up from the horseback-and-corduroy-road epoch to the automobile-and-cement-highway period of today. The Executive has got to have a freer hand and be able to move quick in an emergency, and not be tied down by a lot of dumb shyster-lawyer congressmen taking months to shoot off their mouths in debates. BUT–and it’s a But as big as Deacon Checkerboard’s hay-barn back home–these new economic changes are only a means to an End, and that End is and must be, fundamentally, the same principles of Liberty, Equality, and Justice that were advocated by the Founding Fathers of this great land back in 1776!
Windrip’s ghost-writer is a sleazy journalist (and one of the book’s more memorable characters). He’s responsible for putting these words in Windrip’s mouth:
… I know the Press only too well. Almost all editors hide away in spider-dens, men without thought of Family or Public Interest or the humble delights of jaunts out-of-doors, plotting how they can put over their lies, and advance their own positions and fill their greedy pocketbooks by calumniating Statesmen who have given their all for the common good and who are vulnerable because they stand out in the fierce Light that beats around the Throne.
I’ve got to say, a lot of Lewis’s characters sound awfully familiar:
“Now listen, Dad. You don’t understand Senator Windrip. Oh, he’s something of a demagogue–he shoots off his mouth a lot about how he’ll jack up the income tax and grab the banks, but he won’t–that’s just molasses for the cockroaches. What he will do, and maybe only he can do it, is to protect us from the murdering, thieving, lying Bolsheviks that would–why, they’d like to stick all of us that are going on this picnic, all the decent clean people that are accustomed to privacy, into hall bedrooms, and make us cook our cabbage soup on a Primus stuck on a bed! Yes, or maybe ‘liquidate’ us entirely! No sir, Berzelius Windrip is the fellow to balk the dirty sneaking Jew spies that pose as American Liberals!”
So what do I make of this? Well, we survived the 1930s. It Can’t Happen Here passed into relative literary obscurity, pretty much forgotten until this election season, and the characters on whom it was based have been so forgotten that no one even recognizes their most famous lines anymore. So that’s good, at least. Perhaps this election will likewise be a forgotten blip in American history.
What do you make of it? Have a look through it if you’ve never read it. It’s a quick read. Does anything sound familiar? If so, is that frightening or reassuring?
I think I’ll read Babbitt next. Can’t afford to be poorly-read if I’ve got a deadline looming, can I?
Published in General
I am a big Sinclair Lewis fan, having read several of his books. The best are Main Street, Babbitt, Arrowsmith, in this order. I also read It Can’t Happen Here a few years ago.
Trump is a pretty good approximation of Buzz Windrip. As described by Lewis, the problem is not just the man himself and his violent talk and instinct but the fact that he empowers a lot of people with bad thoughts and bad motives. So now in 2016 we have the con of the last act when they are trying to recast Trump as a humane, considerate, contrite human being (so unlike his persona during the primaries) courtesy of Kellyanne Conway and other professional manipulators.
That may work before November. But one thing that they cannot reverse is the fact that a lot of bad people are out of the woodwork and they want their man and their day. This genie is not going back in the bottle. And needless to say, if he wins, Trump will immediately revert to his true self.
Re Lewis, he deserves a bigger following. He was also the first American to win the Nobel for literature.
He’s not exactly neglected, though. I mean, he did win the Nobel.
I’m finding It Can’t Happen Here far too close to home. It makes it very clear that we’re not dealing with something entirely new here; this has been part of the American character for a long time.
I think, ultimately, it can’t happen in America, and revulsion at Trump and his movement will triumph decisively. But the tragedy is that this doesn’t leave us with Roosevelt. It leaves us with Hillary Clinton.
It Can’t Happen Here.
#SMOD2016.
I find it humous. Everybody talks about Trump as a dictator. I find that so doubtful. HRC and her Democrats has a much larger track record on abusing power, ignoring law, etc. than Trump ever considered or could accomplish.
Could it happen here. No doubt. Is it Trump? Doubtful. Is it HRC, possibly.
Sinclair Lewis and Mark Twain are constantly compared to one another by simple virtue of being satirists. While Twain had the uncanny knack for wry assemblages of contemporaneous America–Lewis possessed some frightening crystal ball with which he could scry horrific American political and cultural future-present. It Can’t Hapen Here is absolutely one of my favorite books–and while doomsayers love to bring it up during every presidency, when both Sanders and Trump arrived it was the first time I thought, there’s Buzz.
The combination of both Populist tendencies and personalities is perhaps the most disarming of his predictions. American Populists have decried wealth disparity since William Jennings Bryan’s Cross of Gold speech. His 3 time consecutive loss as the Democratic Nominee extending into his tenure as Secretary of State under Wilson when the Great War started bears acknowledgment of American Populists driving Global Paranoia and Nationalism to disastrous war. (Lewis’ son died in WWI)
Long was more like a racist Sanders, so Lewis’ embodiement of Trump’s snake oil salesman/Contractor who is totally going to screw you on the estimate is just the complete chill running down my back.
Beyond politics, Lewis is a brilliant writer and its a gorgeous and riveting piece of work. Babbitt is excellent as well (an apparently the naming inspiration for Tolkien’s The Hobbit). Arrowsmith kinda lost me after they released Toy’s in the Attic–wait, my bad, got side tracked. In all seriousness, a fantastic book.
So, to sum up:
Trump = Hitler
Well, that argument changes everything.
Roosevelt did an incredible amount of damage to this country, that we are still dealing with today. His Supreme Court appointees were bascially rubber stamps to all his New Deal Projects that prolonged the Great Depression. Something to think about when those who say we can “survive” a Clinton administration.
Nope. And neither is Buzz. You should read the book, then you could make the counterargument that Clinton is Buzz. It’s great reading, way better than Art of Deal which I finally choked down.
Remember? Art of War and all that. Know yourself and know your enemies and you can win 1000 battles without disaster.
It always happens somewhere, and that somewhere is a here.
I don’t know about the comparisons to the book character, but yes, HRC is much more likely than Trump to institute something resembling a dictatorship. Both because of her history, and because, unlike Trump, HRC has built the machinery to make it happen.
I admit to not having read the book but a fun reminder:
Hillary Clinton is clearly guilty of systematic corruption, having sold the influence of the Department of State for as little as $100,000 to amongst other Bahrain which doesn’t have the greatest human rights record.
She supports the government direction of private industry and finance as evidenced by her support of Obamacare and promises of free college tuition.
“No reasonable prosecutor” would indict her for clear violations of the law because she’s a high Party official.
My point is it’s already happened here. And millions of people are going to go vote for more of the same, not realizing that Newton’s Third Law can apply to more than just the physical world.
Buckle up folks, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.
Of the two candidates running, only one has a proven track record of growing the coercive power of the state at the expense of free citizens. The one with that track record is not Donald Trump.
The only saving grace of this story is that so many countries with competing agendas tried to buy her that they probably all cancel each other out.
Read the book many years ago. It is already happening here.
Barack Obama is our first post-constitutionalist president. Richard Nixon claimed “if the President does it, that means it’s not illegal“, only after he resigned. Obama has claimed it while President. Nixon tried to unleash the IRS on his political opponents, but his Republican appointee refused. When Obama unleashed the IRS, his political appointees joyously followed their Glorious Leader. He has incited intolerance of those who do not embrace his political and personal views, and used his authority to widen the divides among Americans based on race, ethnicity and gender, all for his admitted purpose to transform the country which, in his view, has been tragically flawed since its inception. His acolytes in government; federal, state, and local, as well as in the media, education and business establishments have worked in concert to intimidate, purge and silence their opponents.
The question really has become, “In what flavor would you like your authoritarianism?”
For anything to happen “here,” there will need to be a force to back it up. We know that the bureaucracy has been loading up. There are now more federal agents trained in assault tactics, armed and authorized to arrest civilians (200,000) than there are U.S. Marines (180,000).
Dr. Tom Coburn, the former Senator from Oklahoma, pointed this out in an OpEd in the WSJ:
Who is more likely to send the armed bureaucrats of the EPA ($3.1M in “assault rifles” and ammo) into the homes and businesses of America? Trump or HRC? Or these people (Again, quoting Coburn):
Hillary Clinton is as close to a late Republic Roman politician gouging provinces to pay for her political career as exists.
There’s very little that is new. We moderns are obsessed with what is fresh and young and now. So it feels new. But that’s just because we aren’t paying attention to the old.
Great authors are great because they capture something timeless. Lewis is one of those authors. I’ve never read this one, though. Looking forward to it.
Since the Nazi eugenics program was created in America, the real question is:
Which candidate is the eugenicist?
Great comment, @ejhill and backed up with facts. I am under no delusions that DJT is the second coming of Ronald Reagan, but I also don’t have my head in the sand about what HRC can/will do.
Yes! Exactly.
My concern with a Trump victory is that it makes both parties the answer to this question. Up until Trump, Republicans mostly rejected the question.
My frustration with reluctant Trumpers like @peterrobinson is they are granting the validity of the question by choosing an answer while intending later to go back and reject the question. But if we get our answer then the question is settled.
My frustration with #nevertrumpers is statements like that which imply I am being duped or conned, or I don’t know what I am doing.
Hillary Clinton vows, as her top priority, to repeal the First Amendment in order to prevent political opponents from criticizing her and the mass of her supporters are wild about the idea. It is happening here.
The media instructs us about the violent threat from Trump supporters but it has been Democrats who seek to violently disrupt the rallies of their political opponents and they are cheered on by a media which finds it all so amusing. It is happening here.
Hindsight is always amazingly sharp when you want to focus on a target. but it is an odd ahistorical inconsistency to focus on Father Coughlin as an archetype of the demagogue for Sinclair Lewis just because of similar sounding terms and his unfortunate anti-Semitism in identifying enemies when at the same time in the 1930’s George Orwell and just about every socialist in the West spoke favorably of National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy when they were allied with the Soviets and only realigned when the alliance turn sour out of fear and ambition.
By the mid 1930’s the Soviets had already murdered nearly forty million innocents and the National Socialists none so Coughlin’s idea of using the Brown Shirts to bleed the Reds white isn’t too unusual. Coughlin was silenced by his his new Bishop in 1942 after his prior Bishop viewing Coughlin’s work as beneficial resisted Vatican pressure to silence him for most of the 1930’s. Roosevelt’s efforts were standard Fascistic application of Government power to silence dissent and not effective.
Socialistic fascism as a powerful political movement was everywhere in the 1930 but anyone who doesn’t see Roosevelt as a Fascist isn’t really paying attention. Stalin’s Socialism in a Single Country is indistinguishable from Hitler’s National Socialism and much of the FDR and Hoover’s New Deal.
And yes Trump is a National Socialist and Clinton is an International Socialist.
When people are dissatisfied with their government, they look for alternatives. Each alternative portrays itself as benign, but interiorly, some are and some are not. Further, what begins as a benign movement can be easily derailed.
So yes, it can happen here. Can’t speak to the Lewis book, but the idea that a country could turn to a nefarious despot is certainly possible.
Usually the tell-tale sign of a developing despot is secrecy; there are secrets they don’t want known, and there are facts they don’t want publicized. But in this campaign, for instance, Trump won’t release his tax records, and Hillary … well, Hillary is the most secretive politician we’ve had since Nixon – maybe worse.
Both
I recall Babbit as being dull and pointless when I read it in high school. I remember a scene where he is in the bath tub and he shaves some hair off his leg. The scene was intricately described and yet so bland. And that was the point of the book. It’s about a bland man living a bland life and yet succeeding through mostly petty corruption and market manipulation. I couldn’t have been more bored.
But that was a long time ago when I read it.
I don’t believe you are being duped or conned at all. That implies something entirely different.
And I’m not a Never Trumper. I’m a conservative who in this election has nobody to vote for.
But it is certainly true that reluctant Trumpers are hoping to vote for the non-conservative who is most likely to be conservative-ish. But, based on my conversations here, all reject the idea that the consequence of this choice will fundamentally alter American politics.
Perhaps that’s a good thing. (I don’t think so.) But it should not be denied.
Gee whiz, did Coughlin study Hitler’s oratorical style? I’ve heard of him, but never seen him in action before. Even the lock of hair bouncing on his forehead seems the same. Yet he’s talking in English of his interpretation of Christ.
Very weird indeed.!
The choices that fundamentally altered American politics were made by Republicans who refused to roll back Teddy Kennedy’s immigration policy:
Kennedy:
Kennedy: Fool? Liar?
Republicans: Progressivism’s useful idiots
Obama: Fundamental transformation