Just Finished Reading: It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (FP: 1935) [381pp]

He was the town Liberal, the town intellectual, the town wise-ass and the town’s newspaper editor. Doremus Jessop was part laughed at, part ignored and, by a few, admired for his stand, his views. But this was an election year and the stakes were too high for Jessops kind of mocking humour. The big surprise came with the Democratic nomination. Roosevelt was out and in his place was Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip who promises to restore America’s place in the world, to ensure that it could defend itself against any other country that wanted to try its luck, and to tackle corruption, greedy bankers, the Communist media and anyone not pulling their weight in the countries great reconstruction. What was more he promised each citizen $5,000 whilst increasing defence spending and cutting taxes. Anyone who had the gall to question his maths was labelled a defeatist or worse. Jessop just laughed. No one, he said publically, could fall for such obvious nonsense. When President Windrip was subsequently elected in a landslide Jessop was convinced that his policies would fall flat and that he’d soon be forced back into the real world. When Congress voted against the first attempt to consolidate power purely in the Presidents hands they were declared traitors and arrested. Jessop was convinced that this was, finally, the end of Windrip. He had finally gone too far and his loyal supporters would surely now abandon him. But Jessop was wrong, and this was only the beginning….

I’d heard about this book for a while and picked it up on its republication in 2017 where it was labelled as ‘eerily prescient’ obviously referring to the recent rise of Trump. Overall I thought it was pretty good. Lewis certainly had a good feel for the process of the slide into authoritarianism mostly based on the rise of both Mussolini and (somewhat less so given the publication date) Hitler. I think he also nailed the reaction of both the liberal voices – expecting ‘common sense’ to prevail – and those of the more authoritarian bent who took notice and took advantage of events. I think the author also nailed the psychological make up of members of both sides and the whole evolution of the plot played out pretty much as I would’ve expected it to in real life. I imagine at the time of publication the author came in for a lot of scorn – the very idea that something like that could possibly happen in the freedom loving United States – as well as howls of protest. I also imagine that a significant number of readers where turning pages and nodding sagely, saying to themselves that it could indeed ‘happen here’.

The rise of and desire for authoritarian leaders or governments is not an Italian thing, a German thing or a Russian thing. Nor is it a European, Old World thing. It is, I’m afraid, a human thing. ‘It’ could happen anywhere even with the historical 20-20 vision of 20^th century knowledge of where such things lead. Could it have happened in the US in the 1930’s? Possibly. Could it still happen….? Well, I think we all know the answer to that one. From my (as usual admittedly scant) knowledge of US politics, culture and history it does seem to me that there’s a distinct authoritarian desire in the American psyche. It probably dates from the Puritans and their deep seated fear that someone somewhere was having fun. There seems to be a harking back to some mythical age of order and obedience to and respect for authority that was supposedly lost in the 1960’s and 70’s. Unfortunately genies are notoriously difficult to entice back into their bottles. Of course this doesn’t stop authoritarians trying to do so. They’ll fail – of course – because both history and, more importantly, demographics are against them. I wonder how long it will take for that message to finally sink in. Personally I’m not holding my breath on that one. Definitely recommended for an interesting insight into part of the soul of America. More Lewis to come I think..