It Can’t Happen Here. Sinclair Lewis. 1935. 382 Pages. (Paperback.).

The late American novelist, satirist, and playwright imagines the outcome of the 1936 Presidential election, one year after the book was published. In this cautionary political farce, Berzelius Windrip, a lying, bigoted, openly anti-Semitic, misogynist, racist, ant-immigrant self-serving demagogue Senator wins and proceeds to destroy everything that America once stood for.

In later chapters, Doremus Jessop, a Vermont newspaper man tries to a analyze various forms of government from Russian communism to fascism to socialism and democracy, and seems to come to the conclusion that none of them work. There is a distinct undercurrent of anti-capitalism. Then he does the same thing with various religions.

A police state with forced labour camps develops, but the propaganda’s lies are so convincing that most people come to believe that everyone is better off. An illegal Underground Railroad takes thousands to Canada, and there are threats to invade Canada and Mexico.

The Minute Men volunteers for Windrip morphs into a vicious Gestapo-like Corpo police force to silence any dissent, and they arrest Jessop for writing an anti-Windrip editorial. The universities are consolidated and curriculums are revised to eliminate any philosophy, arts, or true intellectualism.

In the second half of the book, it seems to become less realistic as thousands are summarily executed, two coup-d’état take place and even by 1939, there is no resolution with the country divided by what amounts to a civil war. It is difficult to determine who is a communist, a fascist, or a liberal socialist, as those pejorative terms were then not as rigidly defined as they are today.

This book is prescient with many of the actions then considered impossible and relatable only as fiction now having been enacted by the current, personality cult administration. It remains to be seen how accurate it is.

A great but scary cautionary tale.

4.5/5

Thanks, Andra