It Can't Happen Here (Signet Classics)

Frighteningly prescient, "It Can't Happen Here" follows the achievements of an ignorant blowhard who relies on platitudes and charisma to win the presidency, then lets the country fester under a reign of tyrannical fascism. The press is subverted and a military dictatorship ensues.

If I were to write this novel today, nobody would blink. But the fact that Lewis wrote this in the thirties when Hitler was a known commodity but before the invasion of Poland and the subsequent holocaust (and before Donald Trump was even born) speaks to Lewis's ability to size up the direction in which America was headed. Maybe World War II stopped us from becoming victims of a man like Lewis's President Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, but apparently is was merely a delay.

It's hard not to laugh at some of the political shenanigans documented in this satire, but the laughter becomes hollow as we realize that we are living Lewis's vision—and it isn't quite that funny.

The book itself is physically huge. It is like a text book with huge font. Not convenient and it is petty to complain about but don’t expect to slip this in as a carry on item on a plane. What the heck!!!!

And, of course, it can happen here. The book came as advertised. Good condition. Timely fashion.

5 star seller here

Lewis, one of the great writers of any era. His book The Jungle should be required reading for anyone who works or has an interest in living in a capitalist society. This covers about everybody.

I am anxious to read this . His others I had read, a couple, i may read again, through older, hopefully, wiser, eyes..

Given the current world-wide political climate, I decided to reread It' Can't Happen Here. Well, it CAN happen here, but this classic by Sinclair Lewis is dated and draggy as a a novel. It's hard to combine a political treatise/warning with compelling storytelling. The rise of a fascist as president, the violence, the take-over, the end of freedom of speech & freedom of the press... etc. is a long and painful tale. Read it as a historical cautionary tale, but not as a guide for today.

Nobel Prize winning Sinclair Lewis' prescience in predicting the Donald Trump presidential campaign is amazing. Actually, he was addressing the rise of demagogic politicians during the Great Depression, but it is just as relevant in these Tea Party times. A must read for anyone who thinks the past year's Republican campaign for the US Presidency is just entertainment. Not Lewis' best book by any measure, but certainly one of the most enduring. Apparently, it can happen here.

Sinclair Lewis is one of America's best authors. His works include Main Street, Babbitt, Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, and Dodsworth. He was the first American writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1930. It Can't Happen Here, written in 1935, is not his best book. But it is a necessary book, and provides, perhaps, a more salient, more contemporary warning than Orwell's 1984. Thus I have given it 5 stars. Every American of the Trump era should read it.

Classic fiction written in 1930's from Sinclair Lewis that shows how quickly America's freedom and democracy can be corrupted by self-serving power brokers who feed lies to the mass of people who are easily led to become a nation ruled by the industrialists and the police and army who serve to keep the rich in power. A prelude to "Animal Farm" and a foreboding prediction of 2017 America under Trump and his posse of thieves.

I read this in May of 2016, in response to the rise of Donald Trump within the Republican Party. The book was published in 1935, at height of the Depression and the rise of Fascism in Germany and Italy. While 10 years ago the premise would have been seen as unlikely, but in today's environment, which somewhat mirrors the mood in the 30's, it is not so far fetched. It shows what happens when emotions and blind hope become more important than critical, and that is an important point and lesson in this election season.

The story of a fascist takeover of the United States by big business. The chief strength of the novel is its chilling portrayal of the United States after the bad guys win power. However, for the modern reader, Lewis's novel suffers from several faults.

Most seriously, there's a lack of context. Sinclair Lewis didn't need to provide context to his contemporaries in 1935; it was obvious that the United States was in a depression and that there were demagogues all around. However, the the protagonist newspaper editor and his family and friends are comfortable and seem largely unaffected by the desperate times. Without context, the appeal of the populist demagogue who gets elected is unclear, and lends a confused tone to the book. Also, the editor protagonist is uninteresting. He correctly refers to himself as a "bourgeois intellectual" who faithfully reads the New Republic and is unconsciously and sneeringly condescending toward anyone who doesn't share his enlightened political views. He's the sort who happily and unthinkingly voted for Adlai Stevenson in the 1950's and for Mr. Obama in the 2000's. He's also ineffectual. The book picks up a little narrative momentum when he belatedly starts to fight back after the inevitable fascist takeover, but he spends most of the book bemoaning his helplessness to prevent what he sees is coming or as a hapless victim of the thuggish corporate state.

If you look at the trillions of dollars Presidents Bush and Obama distributed over the past year to their cronies on Wall Street and in Detroit, you can make a good case that we live in a corporate state today, albeit one with the trappings of democracy. The illusion of choice makes us happy, but whoever we vote for, the plutocrats will always win. The chief value of the book today is that of its portrayal of a rotten state devouring itself and the collateral damage to its citizens.

It Can't Happen Here is a shockingly prescient description of the politics of the 2016 general election. The only surprise is that the novel was written in 1935. Sinclair Lewis portrays the era of the ascendent Hitler and Mussolini, but often it feels as if he's describing the current political environment. Follow Doremus Jessup and Berzelius Windrip through the struggle for power and influence in a turbulent world.
Lewis took a critical view of the lives of ordinary middle class Americans. This is not his most familiar text, but it is one very much worth reading.

I will agree with some of the criticism of the writing of this book. It was written in a span of about 5months. There are some definite holes in the story and places that do not flow seamlessly, but I think it was and is a very important story. Reading it now at times I felt sick to my stomach. I see too clearly how easily it could happen here and perhaps, is at this moment. This book was a warning that perhaps we should be heeding.

I got through about 10-15 pages of this one. I found it too detailed at the beginning in regards to characters and details while lacking in story. I did not find myself caring for how the characters progressed.
I might have given it another 20 pages, but I was saved from this duty when a crock pot of barbecue meatballs spilled across the backseat of my car ruining the book.

It's hard for me to find the words to describe this scenario. When I think of fascist creep I think of Sophie Scholl, the attempts at fascism in this country in the 1930's such as the Smedley Butler case. The rise of the extreme right in this country. False flag attacks such as 9/11. Fusion centers, domestic detention centers, Guantanamo Bay. Freedom Fries, Liberty Cabbage, burning and banning of the Dixie Chicks. The presidency of Dick Cheney. What crackdowns will occur with the NEXT false flag event? Operation Northwoods. COINTELPRO. The crackdown of the right to peaceful assembly. Well, on and on. IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, may present an extreme scenario but there are scary trends and portents. The rise of the RIGHT worldwide, neo Nazi movements. Let's just pray it never comes true. A MUST read.

This book was written over 70 years ago, and it's scary how close it is to reality! It pretty much predicted McCarthyism 15 years early. Also a charismatic, ultra-conservative president who is closely allied with religious extremists. President Windrip here is so close to GWB. Luckily the Patriot act and similar outrages haven't come anywhere close to the things that happen in this book. Yet......

It's a pity that this cautionary tale from 1935 has suddenly become frighteningly relevant again -- but apparently its message is one that simply must be repeated on a regular basis in America. As has been said, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” Sinclair Lewis witnessed the rise of fascism in Europe, and he saw signs of its potential to rise in America as well: populist demagogues preaching power & pitiless strength, with a hatred of intelligence, education, art, beauty, and compassion, while always pandering to the willfully & deliberately ignorant to make them wear their ignorance like a badge of honor. In short, the assault of barbarism on civilization.

"It Can't Happen Here" might be written in broad, raw, crude strokes at times, but that diminishes none of its impact. Lewis wasn't trying to make a subtle argument; he saw little time for that, knowing just how swiftly fascism can sweep across a nation. His tale of Buzz Windrip, who would most definitely have had his own reality show if such things existed in 1935, is all too compelling & convincing -- but the real point is that all too many people are willing to cede their freedom & individuality to someone so limited & dangerous, all for the sake of anger & revenge against some vague but overwhelming enemy -- and they'll find whatever scapegoats are necessary, rather than look within to their own emptiness.

I haven't said too much about the actual plot, leaving that to the readers to discover. They'll make their own comparisons to current events easily enough, I'm afraid. But this is required reading for anyone who loves & cherishes not only democracy, but a world of & for civilized adults rather than terrified adolescents. Most urgently recommended!

This book, written in the 1930s, could well be written about our current election. Each time I saw/read the name "Windrip" I immediately envisioned Donald Trump. I know that Lewis was not looking in to the future but rather he was concerned about the seeming fascination with fascism in this country. It's scarily real. Everyone should read before they vote in November.

No wonder this book is enjoying a revival this year. It’s about a demagogue who promises his voters that he’ll, to paraphrase, ‘Make America Great Again.’ It’s uncannily like the current situation although it was written in 1935. The new president starts an anti-Semitic, anti-foreigner personal army and throws dissenters in concentration camps or kills them. Obviously, we’re not at that point here yet, but Lewis is making the point that it is enough for the good to do nothing for evil and ignorance to prevail.

Thought provoking, the plot (written in the mid1930's) could, with but a few updates, have been written right after the 2016 election. The flow of political events, activitions and reactions are a primer for contemporary politics. The rhetoric of today's alt-news and media control are reflections of events in Lewis's book. He even presaged conflict with Mexico and escapes to Canada. The hero is an honest newspaper editor and the villains are an autocratic president and a nepharious henchman in the White House.

I ranked this as "no violence" and "no sexual content" because what little there was was microscopically small by today's standards. It's a good book, not a great book, as a book. But it's uncannily similar to current events and therefore well worth reading as a cautionary tale ...

A very interesting tale and should be read and proclaimed to all. A little hard to read at first and definitely dated hence just the three stars. But with the way the media and Hollywood is already it wouldn't take much for the left to push us in the direction of this book.A

Wake up America!

Though this book was written a long time ago, its parallels to our current environment are eerie. How can someone who is a demagog end up as President of the United States? Would the people allow it to happen? Could it happen here? These are interesting questions answered in this book and perhaps in today's society.

This is an amazing book. It was written and published in 1935, and yet as I read it I felt that I was reading about what is taking place today with President Donald Trump and his regime. I highly recommend this book which for all the darkness casts hope for our future.

Somehow, in 1935, Sinclair Lewis could see what was going to happen in the United States in the years 2008-2016. I can't believe that this book is not getting more attention and acclaim in the "not so mainstream" media. It is so good, and so accurate. Everyone in this country should read this book.

I love it - and I hate it....The ONLY thing that spoiled the reading of this superbly written novel is that, sadly, it HAS happened. We are in the midst of it; the racism, the out-of-control administration, the redoubled efforts to instill fear and confusion, voter suppression....everything that we are now facing, only today's versions have been legitimized and normalized - as if anything could be considered normal at this time. Throughout the reading I was continually reminded of James Baldwin's observation: "American's suffer from an ignorance that is not only colossal, but sacred."

Every American should read Sinclair Lewis's novel about the election to the American Presidency of a demagogue who turns the country into a fascist dictatorship. Buzz Windrip IS Donald Trump. His empty promises ARE Donald Trump's empty promises. His xenophobia, racism, antisemitism, anti-intellectualism, misogyny - all are both warnings and reminders of what we are hearing in this Presidential campaign. Little did Lewis know when he wrote his book during the depths of the Great Depression how prescient he was. Read. This. Book. And remember, Hitler wasn't Hitler until he was.

Just finished "It Cant't Happen Here". As they say in the book "it could be either speculation or prophesy". I think the story is amazingly prescient, but eventually "jumps the shark" before returning to a reasonable resolution. If you want a glimpse into a possible fascist future brought on by a man who promises to make America great again, give it a read.

Just as scary today as when published in 1935. A terrifying read, especially post 2016. We are defending into fascism. History is right there for anyone to take note. How far will we descend? Not an uplifting read but one you wish every member of congress would take up.

Lewis' words ring clear warning signs as the United States deals with the extreme ideologies of the right and left. Accumulation and abuse of power by one political party at the peril of the people jeopardizes freedom. Lewis draws a picture of what happened in Nazi Germany can happen in the United States. This book heightens awareness of the moral claims of freedom in the midst of a politically divided nation.

Tom Creely, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Leadership
Siegel Institute for Leadership, Ethics & Character

After seeing documentaries on the development of the Third Reich, and the appointees of our incoming president, I think ALL AMERICANS should read the book. Sinclair Lewis makes up words so I was constantly using my dictionary and Thesuraus

"We don’t want all this highbrow intellectuality, all this book-learning.”
Sinclair Lewis 1935 book is still relevant today. It tells the tale of Buzz Windrip who beats out FDR for the Presidency of the United States in the 1936 election. He runs on a populist ticket promising $5000 to every one and taking the money away from the rich. He also promises to take away voting rights for women, (they belong in the kitchen after all). Negroes will not be allowed to own businesses but if they can prove they have been good servants they can get a $500 pension. Jews are not exempt either, they run the banks and that power will be taken away from them.

The story is told through the eyes of a small town newspaper owner named Doremus Jessup. He tries to warn the people against this man, who he rightly reads as a potential dictator who will destroy our democracy. This is a frightening book and I could see Trump in this Windrip character. He promised the uneducated people a better life, but ultimately he and his friends are the only ones that benefit.

One thing the new President Windrip does in power is take over the Universities and outlaw classical languages and literature. They become trade schools and propaganda outlets. The Minutemen become his private security force and kick and beat people to keep them in line.

An interesting idea here is that this book was written before Hitler declared war. Sinclair Lewis understood Fascism and what it would do in America before historians could tell you what did happen.

This book was made into a play but never a movie. It should become a movie and soon. I recommend this book to anyone who cares about our country and the dangers of allowing a demagogue to be elected.

Honestly, it's not a very good book. It was written in a hurry and it shows. The writing is a bit turgid by today's standards, and not all the references are understandable to a non-specialist. But I forced myself to read the whole thing, and I do think it's worth reading, to understand how fragile a thing a democratic republic is, and how easily it can be lost. The echoes of today are there--in fact, the populist demagogue who is elected in this novel is well-qualified compared to our present president-elect. But the point is mainly that things can slide downhill faster than we might imagine. Forewarned is forearmed.

hubby said I was extra cranky while reading this but man-o-man it was easy to get into the spirit. We just happened to watched "the pianist" right before I started reading and I thought it tied nicely into the theme of how people react under threat of mass extermination. other reviewers did a good job so I won't say anything else. Highly recommended.

This book has a small format and minute print. It is very hard to read. In General books sold by the store say nothing about format and print size.
This is a very negative feature. In a bookstore you see what you are getting. Michael

This book is a satire, I know. Why, while reading , did I feel like someone was kicking me in the stomache ? This is a very good book and should be required reading for any American who votes. Was Sinclair Lewis a time traveler? Ha.

The book is what I expected, did have a minor problem that it has several discs that are in the set will not play in my car, which is where I listen to audio books. Had to put them into the computer and make a copy of the ones that would not play and then listen to the copies in the car. Inconvience but it works.

This book, published in 1935, has many similarities to what has been going on in the US since the latest election. It really can happen here. Our democracy needs to be watched over and the freedom of the press protected!

I picked up the book in response to Herr Trump's rise. So many similarities, I believe he read it (had it read to him?), studied it and used it, right down to the dross he put into his cabinet. If there is a God, I hope she intervenes!

Considering the buffoonery that got the current U.S. president elected, and the horrifying people serving as his closest advisors and cabinet, this book is a terrifying read. Many of the events herein have not yet come to pass in this current régime, but it is quite easy to see how they could. Some hope does lie in Lewis's depiction of almost all the female characters being part of the resistance movement, and seeing also that parallel occurring in modern times.

The story takes place in 1936 during the depression and Hitler’s rise to power. There are the problems of high unemployment, mass and unwanted immigration, loss of morals, welfare cheats (“freeloaders”), liberals, a lack of religion, and crime. Sound familiar? It gets better. A demagogue named Buzz Windrip from the Democratic party comes to dump Roosevelt.
He appeals to the masses and gets nominated for President. He forms his own militia called the Minute Men, or M.M. (Nazi S.S.) for short, to whip up support and deal with any despondents. Windup wins, neutralizes the Congress and the Supreme Court, and establishes a dictatorship. Concentration camps are set up with torture, censorship, and the system of states are abolished, replacing them with eight provinces, and terror ensues. Ethnic groups such as the Jews and the Negroes are “put in their place,” and women are confined to the home, as housewives, nothing more. Major institutions such as the banks and oil fields are nationalized.
The story itself takes place in Fort Beulah, Vermont, with one professional journalist, Dormeus Jessup and his family who observe all this, yet write articles and editorials condemning this. Naturally, the regime catches on and starts to terrorize Dormeus and his family. A resistance is formed, and one of their major operations is smuggling refugees to Canada, where they carry out their planning and operations.
This book was written in 1935 during the Depression and the rise of Hitler and the author got his plot from observing the rise of Nazi Germany. A close friend of his was even in Nazi Germany and provided Lewis with information about the Hitler regime, becoming the basis for this book. The story takes place in 1936 but don’t be misled. This is NOT alternate history. It’s of a tyrannical regime that can rise here in the United States, and this book can be right at home in 1936, 2016, or 2036 equally, and bears parallels with what is happening today in 2016, especially during the presidential election.
An irony here is that this fictitious regime was spawn from the Democratic party rather than the Republican party, as we would see it today. Don’t forget, most racist politicians up until the 1960s were Democrats.
You will see the same problems then as today being the cause of America’s transition to a tyranny, and you will see that things really weren’t all that different back then. Only the names have changed. For example, the immigration problem back in the 1930s were the Jews, Italians, and the Chinese as opposed to the Mexicans, Syrians, and Africans of today. We are still racist, and we still have the same economic problems with the same institutions, with people making the same proposals in dealing with them.
You will see interesting parallels to Nazi Germany: President Windrip’s book “Zero Hour” as opposed to Hilter’s “Mein Kampf”; the Minute Men or M.M. as opposed to the S.S.; The Corpos as opposed to the Nazis; censorship, extreme brutality, confiscation of property, concentration camps, mass slaughters, racial persecutions, and the list goes on.
I think the main point of the book shows how fragile democracy really is and how we need to remain vigilant in order to protect it. We need to watch our government, our institutions, and our businesses, especially big business, to make sure they never get beyond our control (as if they haven’t already, but people in this institutions still go to jail if caught at certain crimes, although it’s becoming rare). If we slack off in our vigilance and actions, we just may end up like the regime depicted in this book.
Ironically, I found copies of this book at a coffee shop, left by someone eager to “get the word out” about what is going on today, and I see the point of that person who left them. Note the title. Many have said in the book, and in real life today, that what happened in Nazi Germany, the swaying of the masses and them giving a country over to a tyrant could never happen here in the U.S.
It can. This book is timeless and serves as a warning to us all, even now. Especially now.

This novel is a classic, with many themes we see in the world today. Highly recommended.

This review is for the Penguin / the store edition here. For $8 and from a major publisher, one should be able to expect that the book would have been proof-read. Clearly this is NOT the case. There are a huge number of typos and garbled text scattered through this edition. It's worse than many self-published unedited books I've bought. Do NOT buy this until the store comes out with a corrected version!

It is happening here. The lesson Lewis wants us to learn is to resist! We American liberals must share the blame for the Trump presidency. We must be bold in our resistance. If we aren't, it will happen here.

Hate to try to rate a book before I've finished it but here goes. Seems to be a preponderance of unnecessary details and I find myself growing weary wading my way through it. Having said that, the similarities between then and now are frightening. I forgot about my experience with Elmer Gantry.

There is no point in me retreading the ground so many have already covered. Lewis wrote a brilliant cautionary tale warning of totalitarianism gestating in American politics and taking over the country. It is a dense read and references to that time may turn a reader off. It is worth sticking it out as parallels to current times will shock and entertain.

While President Trump was campaigning, the comparisons to Sinclair Lewis’ character, Berzelius Windrip, were well underway. Regardless of one’s politics or views, there is no denying obvious similarities. The following passages from the book seem ripped from the headlines, debates, policies, editorials, events, and social media outrages of the last two years:

“The Senator (Windrip) was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his "ideas" almost idiotic…”

“But below this surface stagecraft was his uncommon natural ability to be authentically excited by and with his audience, and they by and with him.”

“…realized that this country has gone so flabby that any gang daring enough and unscrupulous enough, and smart enough not to seem illegal, can grab hold of the entire government and have all the power and applause and salutes, all the money and palaces and willin’ women they want.”

“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.”

“that useful Patriotism which always appears upon threat of an outside attack, the government immediately arrange to be insulted and menaced in a well-planned series of deplorable “incidents” on the Mexican border, and declare war on Mexico as soon as America showed that it was getting hot and patriotic enough.”

“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.”

“…government of the profits, by the profits, for the profits.”

“Peace through Defense—Millions for Arms but Not One Cent for Tribute…”

“A country that tolerates evil means- evil manners, standards of ethics-for a generation, will be so poisoned that it never will have any good end.”

It is a book of haunting connections. In some parts, I shook my head, in others, I paused. It is absolutely incredible and impossible not to connect the content to current politics and events.

On a less heavy note, this bit from the book predicts “Freedom Fries”, “Remember our war hysteria, when we called sauerkraut ‘Liberty cabbage’ and somebody actually proposed calling German measles ‘Liberty measles’?”

Do you remember “Freedom Fries”? It was a political euphemism for French fries in America. In 2003, Republican Chairman of the Committee on House Administration, Bob Ney, renamed the menu item in three Congressional cafeterias in response to France's opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq.

Lastly, it was bizarre to see to references to my hometown of Winnipeg. The presidential candidate who loses against Windrip, is spirited across the U.S./Canadian border in a daring flight. He was being controlled and persecuted. Upon arrival, he celebrates with a breakfast at The Hotel Fort Garry with Winnipeg’s mayor. Canada becomes a refuge for those not agreeing with the state of the union and an underground railroad develops spiriting intellectuals and others from The Minute Men (a kind of Gestapo).

To conclude, it is amazing how topical a book from 80+ years ago can be.

While not Lewis’ best what with his sarcastic and sardonic style in highest dudgeon, it does remind readers just how thin the layers of democracy and civilization are, more easily than we care to believe blown away like topsoil during the Great Depression. It rates four stars because of the warning and prescient message it delivers to every generation of Americans since its publication in 1935.

While readers, distant as they are from the 1930s, may think the novel alerts to the dangers of fascism, it’s really more about the rise of populist demagogues who play on the emotions of disgruntled and disenfranchised people, specifically in Lewis’ case, Louisiana governor and senator Huey Long. The message is it can happen here when given a sufficiently dissociated electorate who respond to simplistic messages, such heard numerous times in American history, as well as most recently: “Make America Great Again,” and “What Have You Got to Lose? To which Lewis, and millions of others, would respond: “Everything.”

The novel divides into three parts. The first covers the furious campaign of one Berzelius Windrip (even the names drip with the sardonic) and his cohorts to win the 1936 Democratic nomination, the winning of it, the organization of a fascist-like corps, and then the rapid conversion to virtual dictatorship. In the second comes the complete destruction of democratic institutions and the use of propaganda and doublespeak to befuddle a nation and whip up enthusiasts, while actively suppressing all kinds of opposition, as well as tossing many into concentration camps and the liberal use of physical abuse and murder. Windrip’s “The Fifteen Points of Victory for the Forgotten Man,” a hodgepodge of socialist and fascist fantastical pledges aimed at those who feel left behind bear a striking resemblance to Long’s eight “Share the Wealth” planks, among them limits on personal wealth, guaranteed income, proper treatment of veterans, and the like. In the third the oppressed organize to conduct their own propaganda campaign to undermine the authoritarian government of Windrip and his successors by palace revolt and assassination, closing on the thought that the effort will be long and relentless.

The focal character here is a sort of intelligent everyman, small town newspaper editor and armchair philosopher Doremus Jessup. As his name implies, Doremus is something of a gatekeeper, here a defender of the American republic way of life, who fails at first to recognize how easily the nation can be swayed by demagoguery into giving up its precious freedoms. However, once aroused, Doremus joins with others, to his own personal peril, in active rebellion. Readers will find it interesting to compare the final words of It Can’t Happen Here with those of Tom Joad in Steinbeck’s 1939 ode to the plight of the oppressed, The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition). The former concludes with, “And still Doremus goes on in the red sunrise, for a Doremus Jessup can never die.” Tom Joad exits near the end with these words to his mother, “Then I’ll be all aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever’where—wherever you look.” (It continues and represents one of the most stirring moments in the novel.)

While not Lewis’ greatest, it is a book with a message, a shouted warning that the lovers of democracy must always be on guard and always ready to rise to its defense, the sooner always being the better.

This was a book I had intended to read in 2017. I bought a physical copy, started it, and found it too slow going. But, interested in the subject matter, I shifted course, got the Audiobook, and pushed through. The fictitious story, published in 1935, paints a portrait of how fascism could rise in America. Of course, as the title points out, part of what facilitates the permissive rise is the generally accepted mindset in America (or, more likely, in most countries with representative forms of government, but especially in America) of "well, that could never happen here." This book first piqued my interest early on in the Trump presidency; as people postulated his potential coup and/or total abuse of powers - against the opposition's argument of "it can't happen in America" - I was interested to see how this author thought it would play out. The book itself seemed a little disjointed. Maybe because it was audiobooked, but I occasionally lost track of the various characters' narratives as they popped in and out, and there were one or two instances where - likely due to my misrememebring events - I felt something had already happened or something was presented out of place/sequence. What shocked me - really shocked - was the author's foresight. I had to triple check the publication date. While Germany was already under Nazi power, and fascism was not foreign on the global stage, the ability of the author to project the treatment of the oppressed and condemned in those countries astounded me. The book was set in 1936, and, as I was listening, I was trying to check events in my mind versus the timelines learned in my history class, saying "I'm pretty sure X didn't happen years later. This author has his timeline all wrong." Turns out, he was just ahead. While he didn't predict a second World War, surely enough, he foresaw much of what would happen within fascist states rather than amongst fascist and free states. Despite being fiction, this was a rather dense, and fairly dull read. But the author's sensitivities to governance/power grabs, and ability to wrap these appropriately in the American social fabric warrant respect and admiration. And as relates to the Trump comparison, there were certainly some moves and statements or worrying proximity, but, on the whole, we're a long, far cry away from the world Sinclair Lewis crafted.

It Can't Happen Here was published in 1935, but much of what it contains echoes today. Consider the rousing oratory that opens the book where a man addressing a small town group declares, "We don't want all this highbrow intellectuality, all this book learning." Thus rose out of this anti-intellectual sentiment is the populist Presidential candidate Buzz Waldrip, and his Svengali and Rasputin Lee Sarason, who secretly believed the country should be, "now only in resolute control by a small oligarchy."

With campaign promises of "the 'Share the Wealth' and 'Every Man a King' proposals of the late Hon. Huey Long to assure every family $5000 a year...", Waldrip soundly defeated his opponent Walt Trowbridge at least partially because Trowbridge, "suffering from the deficiency of being honest and disinclined to promise that he could work miracles, was insisting that we live in the United States of America and not some golden highway to Utopia."

What happened next was predictable in its general direction, but Lewis gave us specifics of the brutality that still somehow shocked. Minorities (Jews, blacks, women, etc.) were marginalized because, "Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on." Then there were the book burnings, killings, beatings, concentration camps, and more.

The protagonist, Doremus Jessup, eventually became entangled in the shady, pitiless, and savage world, and when his home was ransacked looking for contraband and seditious materials, his former friend, Emil Staubmeyer, said, "Just orders--you know--just orders." Remember: this is 1935, long before the foot soldiers of the Third Reich gave their answer, "I was just following the orders."

It Can't Happen Here is horrifyingly prescient. The writing was crisp, the characters well-developed, and the pacing was good. It was, at times, simultaneously difficult to read and impossible to put down. Perhaps a book like this remains relevant because people never really change. It serves as a reminder of how following leaders with their empty promises leads to ruin.

While the idea of the plot ts up to date the setting and language is dated. The real message is that in a democracy, nothing is permanently solved. Every generation faces the same problem set, and each generation can win or lose those battles. The current generation is not doing too well.

The story takes place in 1936 during the depression and Hitler’s rise to power. There are the problems of high unemployment, mass and unwanted immigration, loss of morals, welfare cheats (“freeloaders”), liberals, a lack of religion, and crime. Sound familiar? It gets better. A demagogue named Buzz Windrip from the Democratic party comes to dump Roosevelt.
He appeals to the masses and gets nominated for President. He forms his own militia called the Minute Men, or M.M. (Nazi S.S.) for short, to whip up support and deal with any despondents. Windup wins, neutralizes the Congress and the Supreme Court, and establishes a dictatorship. Concentration camps are set up with torture, censorship, and the system of states are abolished, replacing them with eight provinces, and terror ensues. Ethnic groups such as the Jews and the Negroes are “put in their place,” and women are confined to the home, as housewives, nothing more. Major institutions such as the banks and oil fields are nationalized.
The story itself takes place in Fort Beulah, Vermont, with one professional journalist, Dormeus Jessup and his family who observe all this, yet write articles and editorials condemning this. Naturally, the regime catches on and starts to terrorize Dormeus and his family. A resistance is formed, and one of their major operations is smuggling refugees to Canada, where they carry out their planning and operations.
This book was written in 1935 during the Depression and the rise of Hitler and the author got his plot from observing the rise of Nazi Germany. A close friend of his was even in Nazi Germany and provided Lewis with information about the Hitler regime, becoming the basis for this book. The story takes place in 1936 but don’t be misled. This is NOT alternate history. It’s of a tyrannical regime that can rise here in the United States, and this book can be right at home in 1936, 2016, or 2036 equally, and bears parallels with what is happening today in 2016, especially during the presidential election.
An irony here is that this fictitious regime was spawn from the Democratic party rather than the Republican party, as we would see it today. Don’t forget, most racist politicians up until the 1960s were Democrats.
You will see the same problems then as today being the cause of America’s transition to a tyranny, and you will see that things really weren’t all that different back then. Only the names have changed. For example, the immigration problem back in the 1930s were the Jews, Italians, and the Chinese as opposed to the Mexicans, Syrians, and Africans of today. We are still racist, and we still have the same economic problems with the same institutions, with people making the same proposals in dealing with them.
You will see interesting parallels to Nazi Germany: President Windrip’s book “Zero Hour” as opposed to Hilter’s “Mein Kampf”; the Minute Men or M.M. as opposed to the S.S.; the Corpos as opposed to the Nazis; censorship, extreme brutality, confiscation of property, concentration camps, mass slaughters, racial persecutions, and the list goes on.
I think the main point of the book shows how fragile democracy really is and how we need to remain vigilant in order to protect it. We need to watch our government, our institutions, and our businesses, especially big business, to make sure they never get beyond our control (as if they haven’t already, but people in this institutions still go to jail if caught at certain crimes, although it’s becoming rare). If we slack off in our vigilance and actions, we just may end up like the regime depicted in this book.
Ironically, I found copies of this book at a coffee shop, left by someone eager to “get the word out” about what is going on today, and I see the point of that person who left them. Note the title. Many have said in the book, and in real life today, that what happened in Nazi Germany, the swaying of the masses and them giving a country over to a tyrant could never happen here in the U.S.
It can. This book is timeless and serves as a warning to us all, even now. Especially now.

I am familiar with the author, Sinclair Lewis, but I was not aware of this remarkable book. It was written in 1935, as a cautionary tale to an anxious and troubled nation that might be tempted to elect a tyrant wrapped in patriotic trappings. His American President, Berzelius Windrip, seizes the reigns of power and turns the country into a police state. In this narrative, Sinclair Lewis anticipated years before most of the world the outcome of Hitler's rise to power. He was concerned that America could go the same way. Many reader comments remark on the parallels in this book to the presidential campaign in our day. As long as we believe, "It can't happen here," we are vulnerable to falling into the same trap Sinclair Lewis foresaw in 1935.

Sinclair Lewis was usually a bearer of unpleasant truths. As was George Orwell, in his private writings and in his life. People have been ignoring or giving a patronizing glance to books like this since, like, 1980.

In "It Can't Happen Here" a very bad figure uses the media and in particular the very popular newspapers to distort the perceptions of the public.
There was an incident lately where the news was very confused about what was actually occuring regarding the CIA because only Donald Trump and his minions were aware. The newspapers the next day reported that it was a scandal, but did anyone find out the truth?

There is a chapter in this book in which the soon to be ruthless dictator does exactly that, only using the media of his time. Hearst is included. Now it would be Rupert Murdoch. FOX was the first to report that particular issue.

It's a lot like Zamayatin's "We", and "1984", or a sort of hybrid blend with a dose of actual humor. Thus is it is palatable to the public. Thus it is purchased. Maybe it will have some upsurge benefit.

Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here was originally published in 1935, five years after Lewis became the first U. S. author to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. This late Lewis novel, which imagines a “populist” president, Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, bringing fascism to the U.S., is today more pertinent than ever in light of the current social and political climate.

Lewis has a firm grasp of the seemingly permanent way roughly one-half the U.S. population disdains the other half, with more or less perfect mutuality.

The satire and social criticism we associate with Lewis are certainly predominant throughout the novel, but I was also frequently struck by qualities that are not usually mentioned in discussions of this writer, most notably the sharp, even affectionate attention he can give to private, quotidian pleasures. Early on in the novel, Lewis’s protagonist, the good small-town Vermont newspaper editor Doremus Jessup is alone in his study at home after an evening of frustrating political discussion. Here’s the closing paragraph to chapter three, after there is “a tearing sound, imperious and demanding,” at his study door:

“He opened to admit Foolish, the family dog. Foolish was a reliable combination of English setter, Airedale, cocker spaniel, wistful doe, and rearing hyena. He gave one abrupt snort of welcome and nuzzled his brown satin head against Doremus’s knee. His bark awakened the canary, under the absurd old blue sweater that covered its cage, and it automatically caroled that it was noon, summer noon, among the pear trees in the green Harz hills, none of which was true. But the bird’s trilling, the dependable presence of Foolish, comforted Doremus, made military drill and belching politicians seem unimportant and in security he dropped asleep in the worn brown leather chair.”

So there’s that neglected aspect to Lewis. This curmudgeon can toss off a lovely paragraph, he can.

Catch the delectable ambivalence in this passage:

“Now Doremus was fond of children; approved of them; felt with an earnestness uncommon in parents and grandparents alike that they are human beings and as likely as the next one to become editors. But he hadn’t enough sap of the Christmas holly in his veins to enjoy listening without cessation to the bright prattle of children. Few males have, outside of Louisa May Alcott. He thought (though he wasn’t dogmatic about it) that the talk of a Washington correspondent about politics was likely to be more interesting than Davy’s remarks on cornflakes and garter snakes, so he went on loving the boy and wishing he would shut up.” I enjoyed that paragraph from top to bottom.

I’m quoting passages that are not at all characteristic, but they are a strong part of what kept me going. Admittedly, the writing is uneven, occasionally downright clunky, and the dialogue is at times excruciatingly inept. Lewis’s choice of names for fascist operatives can be pretty heavy-handed, almost as if he’s writing a Restoration comedy: John Sullivan Reek, Anthony B. Susan, Dr. Macgoblin, Captain Cowlick, etc. Then again, a long-standing operative of the Trump Organization is actually a Pecker.

Everywhere he goes, including a concentration camp and exile in Canada, the protagonist carries with him a copy of the first volume of Spengler’s The Decline of the West, which he has never managed to get very far into. Every reader who has ever struggled with and given up on that one should enjoy this motif each time it recurs.

All things considered, I stayed with the book and closed it with the unmistakable sense of having experienced an imperfect American classic.

A chilling thought I had while reading about the militia in this book: that we might not get past the current disturbing, fragmented, unstable American moment without bloody demonstrations as to why a certain element among us is so enamored with guns. I would be all too pleased to have this thought turn out to be over-the-top.

Following the mind-boggling election of Donald Trump in 2016, sales of this book rose (I at first used the word “skyrocketed” but immediately felt that sounded too much like Trump), and according to one Chicago librarian, the book continues to be widely read. So, ironically, the only respectable person I can think of who could credibly be said to have benefited from Trump’s presidency, however indirectly, is long gone.

This book is an interesting look at how a fascist dictator could take over the USA in a matter of months, seducing millions with loud, vulgar, unapologetically offensive language, promises he can't keep, appeals to racism and xenophobia, and the image of a "political outsider." The two main highlights of the book are the dramatic rise to power of Berzelius Windrip and the way the general populace, once apathetic or even slightly critical of him, slowly begins to accept him as a leader and fall under the influence of his cult of personality.

That being said, the book does have some faults. I found most of the main characters to be a bit one-dimensional, and the prose, although clear and understandable, was not particularly outstanding. And while Windrip's seizure of power was fascinating, it was almost a direct copy of how Adolf Hitler took over Germany. Still, this is a very fun book. It's not going to make you ponder the human condition or any of our main characters, but it will provide a gripping read and it will make you think about the stability of democracy and liberalism in any country, even one of the oldest liberal democracies in the world. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book.

This political satire from 1935 imagines a blustering American politician ascending to the presidency on a nationalistic campaign, aggressively insisting on anti-immigrant falsehoods and demonizing the media for disputing them. Although many citizens are opposed to his politics, they blithely reassure themselves that fascism could never take hold in America, and they proceed to ignore each new warning sign until it is far too late for any effective resistance. Thus went Germany under the Nazis in real life, and author Sinclair Lewis convincingly illustrates how a similar process could unfold here at home.

The elephant in the room for a 2017 reader is the striking resemblance between President Buzz Windrip and our own Donald Trump, which has helped fuel a renewed modern interest in this novel. But honestly, that parallel struck me as more of a surface-level distraction, because a fascist movement in America isn't necessarily going to come from someone who resembles these men. (And Windrip is, after all, a Democrat in the era of FDR whose campaign promises include a guaranteed basic income for all citizens.) The strength of It Can't Happen Here is as a cautionary tale against the pull of authoritarianism and willful ignorance, no matter which side of the political aisle is presenting that threat.

I read this book several years ago, but it still haunts me and seems even more timely now. When I read today about a certain presidential candidate's predilection for suing people who criticize him, and his boast that newspapers will be in trouble when he's elected, I keep thinking back to Buzz Windrip. The book also feels close to home in that the characters who try to escape to Canada also live in central Vermont, in a town that, judging from the description in the book, is just a few short miles away from where I live now. I'm hoping that things won't get so bad next year that I'll need to escape to Canada, but I also believe that It Can Happen Here if we're not careful.

It Can't Happen Here

This 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis begins in a small town in Vermont which has the differences of classes and people to represent the United States in a nutshell. There is talk by some to prepare for the next war by military training in college. From that, Sinclair Lewis builds a fantasy 1936 election between two fictional candidates: Walt Trowbridge and Berzelius Windrup. "Buzz" Windrip is a chameleon of a politician who easily adjusts to any audience. [Was he modeled after Huey Long?] But a lot of the references mean little to those born after 1965. Buzz's campaign speech is a clever parody of real politicians: he wanted high wages and low prices, etc. Chapter 8 has the "Fifteen Points of Victory", which may be as satirical today. The fifteenth point creates an Imperial President. [How close are we to that today?] The oratorical skills of Windrip suggest another Wilson, or maybe a Hitler (Chapter 9). Many of the details are now obscure (Chapter 11). Chapter 13 gives the author's opinion of the many reformers who sought a better world. Chapter 17 explains how this Corporate State was organized, and how it controlled and exploited most of the workers, who were now in "labor camps" (company towns?). The resulting inflation allowed Big Business to pay off old debts cheaply, and doubled their wealth (Germany in the 1920s?). Promises made to the people are deferred, then forgotten. A physician who protests the arrest of Doremus Jessup is summarily shot, and his property confiscated; his wife and child left homeless.

The story continues with Doremus Jessup seeking to oppose the rule of Windrip. He starts to print pamphlets (Chapter 26). A modern state, by controlling the press, various associations, and the armed forces, can dominate the population better that in medieval days. The mismanagement by the Corpos is measured by the increasing poverty of the people (Chapter 29). Finally, the Minnie Men come and take Jessup away (Chapter 30). Jessup is beaten, then given a virtual life sentence. "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" said Newton. Effingham Swan discovers this in Chapter 33.

As happens with other criminal gangs, personal conflicts lead to changes. "Buzz" Windrip is deposed by Lee Sarason. Next month Lee Sarason was shot by Secretary of War Haik, who became the new Chief. Haik becomes a Puritan Emperor after purging the administration (Chapter 35). Changes at the camps gave Jessup a chance to escape (Chapter 36), and then cross the border to freedom in Canada. There was a story about Mexican bandits invading a Texas town - when everyone was away! This meant war. But an unanticipated rebellion occurred against the Corpo regime, and split the country. Jessup will be sent back as a secret agent (?) to organize resistance. In the last page Jessup is awakened so he can flee a Corpo posse, and continue the struggle for freedom. Like other dramas, the question of success is left unanswered. This is worth reading, even if as out-of-date as "Looking Backwards, 2000-1887" or "The Iron Heel". They give different views of a possible future. Perhaps the first novel on this subject was "Caesar's Column" by Ignatius Donnelly.

Why “it can’t happen here”? Because there were no infringements on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
The people could protest effectively any attempts at an Imperial President (who acts for the Big Corporations). Is that still true today? I hope so. This story was inspired by a true event, the attempt to stage a coup d'etat during Franklin Roosevelt's first term. The plotter picked a charismatic but patriotic Marine General who denounced the plotters. The promise of “higher wages and lower prices” seems to have inspired the Fair Tax movement, another fraud; it is self-contradictory.

If you want to read a dystopian novel that describes and predicts Trump. this is THE one to read. You will, like me, probably conclude that it has begun to happen here.

Sinclair Lewis, in the mid 1930's, predicted the rise of Hitler-- a fascist, press bashing, hating leader who erased human rights and took heavy-handed control of the nation. This book describes a popular senator who becomes president-- who looks a lot like Hitler.
Quotes from the book:
"“The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his "ideas" almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store."

“Cure the evils of Democracy by the evils of Fascism! Funny therapeutics. I’ve heard of their curing syphilis by giving the patient malaria, but I’ve never heard of their curing malaria by giving the patient syphilis!”

"“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..."

"NOW is a fact that cannot be dodged."

I've included a photo of my first edition copy of the book.

A fantastic work of a dystopic past.

A brash, charismatic blowhard is elected president and takes the nation on a downward spiral. Rights are removed, congress is neutered and the supreme court is disbanded. The regime is supported by a group of administration supported called Minute Men. ...

Im not going to go into more detail on what the book is about, it's short enough you can read it for yourself, but I will say this is an allusion to Hitler and his rise in Nazi Germany, it has little to do with Donald Trump. It's fashionable to equate President Buzz Windrip with Trump, but that's not based in any reality. Buzz had a private army and immediately neutered congress and dismissed the supreme court while immediately setting up concentration camps for dissenters. Where he does resemble Trump is the campaign. A loud, charismatic form of verbal diarrhea that promised everyone everything with no real structure or plan behind it. Of course the same can be said of any presidential campaign by any candidate over the last 50 years.

"It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis is a prescient, prophetic, visionary novel, that embarks on a cautionary tale of a fascist, misogynist, racist leadership that manages to get democratically elected in the United States. The novel was written in 1930s when fascism was on a rise in the Western Europe while communism was growing stronger by the day in the Eastern Europe, and back when, most of the European nations, the US and Japan harbored strong colonial aspirations. Central to the story is the character of Buzz Windrip, the man who becomes the nominee of a major party, then the president, and then a dictator, "in order to save the nation from the welfare cheats, from crimes and sex, from drinkers and bootleggers, from the rising power of women who had just got the right to vote and work in offices and factories, from the ascendant African-Americans, businessmen Jews and the immigrants, from a liberal press, and imports". Buzz Windrip is brought into power with the help of evangelists and with the help of miners, laborers, and the so-called hardworking middle class American who believe in his promise that everyone would make more money under his leadership. In the first quarter of the novel, as the drumbeats around the nomination and subsequently the election of Buzz Windrip get louder and louder, the confounded intellectuals around the country go on mumbling "It can't happen here!"

The novel is a razor sharp political satire from another era, and it imagines the rise of both a dictatorial president and his henchmen from a fully-functioning democratic set-up. The scenarios imagined with a cold accuracy of a truly imaginative and creative writer appear to the a script many leaders around the world have emulated over the past few decades. Sinclair Lewis was the first American novelist to win a Nobel Prize for literature in 1930, for his major, more famous novels like Main Street, Babbitt and Arrowsmith. Although America narrowly escaped the wave of nazism and fascism in 1930s, the script of the novel stays as fresh and as foreboding as ever. Buzz Windrip, who eventually wins the vote, within this novel is said to have ghost-authored a book, written in a folksy, funny, simplified language, with choicest examples and phrases meant to echo in the minds and hearts of common people. Many chapters open with a paragraph drawn from the imaginary book, (titled Zero Hour) and each paragraph seems to have inspired words and phrases we have heard in our times from the leaders who are said to be in touch with the public, the masses, the working classes.

The novel has a very memorable cast of characters, and works well both as a political satire as well as a saga of families and friends trying to make sense of events and changes around them. The primary actor and thinker in the story is Doremus Jessup, who is an editor of a small New England newspaper. Doremus both bears a witness to the emergence of Buzz as the president and a dictator, and becomes a victim to the influence of Buzz, exercised through handpicked cast of men in administration, each one more cunning and capricious than his predecessor at the job and also the incredible "Minute Men". Minute Men refers to a parallel armed force of followers created by Buzz, with help of Sarason, his confidant and the supposed brain behind many of the popular songs, sayings and policies of Buzz. Minute men run the labor camps (similar to concentration camps), seize what they will, and they control justice system, and the minute men, with their marches and uniforms inspire awe and obedience in the masses. Without giving away the thrilling and chilling plot points, including the inspiring and equally well-written female cast, I would add that the friends and family of Doremus, and his foes, provide a perfect orchestra of voices and choices through which the grand drama of the demise of a democracy is played out. I think it is the honored duty of every individual and every intellectual to read books like this one. Highly recommended.

It's not 2016, it's 1935, and Americans elect a tyrant, masquerading as a populist, garnered support with racism, promises of complete reform of government and serving the "forgotten man." Once in office he appoints his own Supreme Court, reduces Congress to advisory status, and holds those who oppose his actions in "protective custody for their own safety." Sinclair Lewis takes us through it from the viewpoint of a Vermont newspaper editor, his family and associates. I don't want to go any further with this because I don't want to give any spoilers. I'm glad I read it.

Note: I am a big fan of Sinclair Lewis. Fair warning.
THis isn't Lewis's absolute best, but it makes a point that was unheeded in the day, and is apparently only now getting re-recognized. Lewis had a gift for pointing out consequences of trends (see ELmer Gantry or Babitt). This isn't his most perfectly written or executed, but it's one that (like 1984) delivers a powerful warning, and has scathing insights into human nature. Read it as a kid, always kept a copy, but my family always knew "it" can happen *anywhere*. A terribly cynical view that, like Lewis's, offers hope nonetheless in the refusal of some to accept the quick-easy-simple slogan over lasting solutions.... Good read, for me, but as I said to start, I'm a Lewis fan.

It Can't Happen Here

This 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis begins in a small town in Vermont which has the differences of classes and people to represent the United States in a nutshell. There is talk by some to prepare for the next war by military training in college. From that, Sinclair Lewis builds a fantasy 1936 election between two fictional candidates: Walt Trowbridge and Berzelius Windrup. "Buzz" Windrip is a chameleon of a politician who easily adjusts to any audience. [Was he modeled after Huey Long?] But a lot of the references mean little to those born after 1965. Buzz's campaign speech is a clever parody of real politicians: he wanted high wages and low prices, etc. Chapter 8 has the "Fifteen Points of Victory", which may be as satirical today. The fifteenth point creates an Imperial President. [How close are we to that today?] The oratorical skills of Windrip suggest another Wilson, or maybe a Hitler (Chapter 9). Many of the details are now obscure (Chapter 11). Chapter 13 gives the author's opinion of the many reformers who sought a better world. Chapter 17 explains how this Corporate State was organized, and how it controlled and exploited most of the workers, who were now in "labor camps" (company towns?). The resulting inflation allowed Big Business to pay off old debts cheaply, and doubled their wealth (Germany in the 1920s?). Promises made to the people are deferred, then forgotten. A physician who protests the arrest of Doremus Jessup is summarily shot, and his property confiscated; his wife and child left homeless.

The story continues with Doremus Jessup seeking to oppose the rule of Windrip. He starts to print pamphlets (Chapter 26). A modern state, by controlling the press, various associations, and the armed forces, can dominate the population better that in medieval days. The mismanagement by the Corpos is measured by the increasing poverty of the people (Chapter 29). Finally, the Minnie Men come and take Jessup away (Chapter 30). Jessup is beaten, then given a virtual life sentence. "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" said Newton. Effingham Swan discovers this in Chapter 33.

As happens with other criminal gangs, personal conflicts lead to changes. "Buzz" Windrip is deposed by Lee Sarason. Next month Lee Sarason was shot by Secretary of War Haik, who became the new Chief. Haik becomes a Puritan Emperor after purging the administration (Chapter 35). Changes at the camps gave Jessup a chance to escape (Chapter 36), and then cross the border to freedom in Canada. There was a story about Mexican bandits invading a Texas town - when everyone was away! This meant war. But an unanticipated rebellion occurred against the Corpo regime, and split the country. Jessup will be sent back as a secret agent (?) to organize resistance. In the last page Jessup is awakened so he can flee a Corpo posse, and continue the struggle for freedom. Like other dramas, the question of success is left unanswered. This is worth reading, even if as out-of-date as "Looking Backwards, 2000-1887" or "The Iron Heel". They give different views of a possible future. Perhaps the first novel on this subject was "Caesar's Column" by Ignatius Donnelly.

Why “it can’t happen here”? Because there were no infringements on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
The people could protest effectively any attempts at an Imperial President (who acts for the Big Corporations). Is that still true today? I hope so. This story was inspired by a true event, the attempt to stage a coup d'etat during Franklin Roosevelt's first term. The plotter picked a charismatic but patriotic Marine General who denounced the plotters. The promise of “higher wages and lower prices” seems to have inspired the Fair Tax movement, another fraud; it is self-contradictory.

WARNING: DO NOT BUY THIS EDITION!!! I have read and loved this book twice before and because of the current political climate I wanted to read it again. DO NOT BUY THIS EDITION!! I do not know what happened here, but you need to buy the Signet Kindle version to get the real book. From the beginning I sensed that something was wrong and after a few chapters I purchased another copy to compare. HUGE DIFFERENCE!! The Signet version is the real book...the way Lewis wrote it...with table of contents, etc. I feel so badly for the people who read this E-book version.

It Can't Happen Here

This 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis begins in a small town in Vermont which has the differences of classes and people to represent the United States in a nutshell. There is talk by some to prepare for the next war by military training in college. From that, Sinclair Lewis builds a fantasy 1936 election between two fictional candidates: Walt Trowbridge and Berzelius Windrup. "Buzz" Windrip is a chameleon of a politician who easily adjusts to any audience. [Was he modeled after Huey Long?] But a lot of the references mean little to those born after 1965. Buzz's campaign speech is a clever parody of real politicians: he wanted high wages and low prices, etc. Chapter 8 has the "Fifteen Points of Victory", which may be as satirical today. The fifteenth point creates an Imperial President. [How close are we to that today?] The oratorical skills of Windrip suggest another Wilson, or maybe a Hitler (Chapter 9). Many of the details are now obscure (Chapter 11). Chapter 13 gives the author's opinion of the many reformers who sought a better world. Chapter 17 explains how this Corporate State was organized, and how it controlled and exploited most of the workers, who were now in "labor camps" (company towns?). The resulting inflation allowed Big Business to pay off old debts cheaply, and doubled their wealth (Germany in the 1920s?). Promises made to the people are deferred, then forgotten. A physician who protests the arrest of Doremus Jessup is summarily shot, and his property confiscated; his wife and child left homeless.

The story continues with Doremus Jessup seeking to oppose the rule of Windrip. He starts to print pamphlets (Chapter 26). A modern state, by controlling the press, various associations, and the armed forces, can dominate the population better that in medieval days. The mismanagement by the Corpos is measured by the increasing poverty of the people (Chapter 29). Finally, the Minnie Men come and take Jessup away (Chapter 30). Jessup is beaten, then given a virtual life sentence. "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" said Newton. Effingham Swan discovers this in Chapter 33.

As happens with other criminal gangs, personal conflicts lead to changes. "Buzz" Windrip is deposed by Lee Sarason. Next month Lee Sarason was shot by Secretary of War Haik, who became the new Chief. Haik becomes a Puritan Emperor after purging the administration (Chapter 35). Changes at the camps gave Jessup a chance to escape (Chapter 36), and then cross the border to freedom in Canada. There was a story about Mexican bandits invading a Texas town - when everyone was away! This meant war. But an unanticipated rebellion occurred against the Corpo regime, and split the country. Jessup will be sent back as a secret agent (?) to organize resistance. In the last page Jessup is awakened so he can flee a Corpo posse, and continue the struggle for freedom. Like other dramas, the question of success is left unanswered. This is worth reading, even if as out-of-date as "Looking Backwards, 2000-1887" or "The Iron Heel". They give different views of a possible future. Perhaps the first novel on this subject was "Caesar's Column" by Ignatius Donnelly.

Why “it can’t happen here”? Because there were no infringements on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
The people could protest effectively any attempts at an Imperial President (who acts for the Big Corporations). Is that still true today? I hope so. This story was inspired by a true event, the attempt to stage a coup d'etat during Franklin Roosevelt's first term. The plotter picked a charismatic but patriotic Marine General who denounced the plotters. The promise of “higher wages and lower prices” seems to have inspired the Fair Tax movement, another fraud; it is self-contradictory.

It Can't Happen Here

This 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis begins in a small town in Vermont which has the differences of classes and people to represent the United States in a nutshell. There is talk by some to prepare for the next war by military training in college. From that, Sinclair Lewis builds a fantasy 1936 election between two fictional candidates: Walt Trowbridge and Berzelius Windrup. "Buzz" Windrip is a chameleon of a politician who easily adjusts to any audience. [Was he modeled after Huey Long?] But a lot of the references mean little to those born after 1965. Buzz's campaign speech is a clever parody of real politicians: he wanted high wages and low prices, etc. Chapter 8 has the "Fifteen Points of Victory", which may be as satirical today. The fifteenth point creates an Imperial President. [How close are we to that today?] The oratorical skills of Windrip suggest another Wilson, or maybe a Hitler (Chapter 9). Many of the details are now obscure (Chapter 11). Chapter 13 gives the author's opinion of the many reformers who sought a better world. Chapter 17 explains how this Corporate State was organized, and how it controlled and exploited most of the workers, who were now in "labor camps" (company towns?). The resulting inflation allowed Big Business to pay off old debts cheaply, and doubled their wealth (Germany in the 1920s?). Promises made to the people are deferred, then forgotten. A physician who protests the arrest of Doremus Jessup is summarily shot, and his property confiscated; his wife and child left homeless.

The story continues with Doremus Jessup seeking to oppose the rule of Windrip. He starts to print pamphlets (Chapter 26). A modern state, by controlling the press, various associations, and the armed forces, can dominate the population better that in medieval days. The mismanagement by the Corpos is measured by the increasing poverty of the people (Chapter 29). Finally, the Minnie Men come and take Jessup away (Chapter 30). Jessup is beaten, then given a virtual life sentence. "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" said Newton. Effingham Swan discovers this in Chapter 33.

As happens with other criminal gangs, personal conflicts lead to changes. "Buzz" Windrip is deposed by Lee Sarason. Next month Lee Sarason was shot by Secretary of War Haik, who became the new Chief. Haik becomes a Puritan Emperor after purging the administration (Chapter 35). Changes at the camps gave Jessup a chance to escape (Chapter 36), and then cross the border to freedom in Canada. There was a story about Mexican bandits invading a Texas town - when everyone was away! This meant war. But an unanticipated rebellion occurred against the Corpo regime, and split the country. Jessup will be sent back as a secret agent (?) to organize resistance. In the last page Jessup is awakened so he can flee a Corpo posse, and continue the struggle for freedom. Like other dramas, the question of success is left unanswered. This is worth reading, even if as out-of-date as "Looking Backwards, 2000-1887" or "The Iron Heel". They give different views of a possible future. Perhaps the first novel on this subject was "Caesar's Column" by Ignatius Donnelly.

Why “it can’t happen here”? Because there were no infringements on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
The people could protest effectively any attempts at an Imperial President (who acts for the Big Corporations). Is that still true today? I hope so. This story was inspired by a true event, the attempt to stage a coup d'etat during Franklin Roosevelt's first term. The plotter picked a charismatic but patriotic Marine General who denounced the plotters. The promise of “higher wages and lower prices” seems to have inspired the Fair Tax movement, another fraud; it is self-contradictory.

I read this book many years ago - right around the time of Nixon's re-election, if memory serves. That was the first time, and it blew my mind and no doubt had a huge influence on the rest of my life.
Then I read it again just last year, after reading Frederic Rich's new novel Christian Nation. I'm certain Rich was inspired to write his book after reading Lewis' book. In both cases "it" - a Christo-Fascist takeover of the government of the USA - can indeed happen. And in the case of Christina Nation it does.
I can't recommend both of these books enough! I DID happen here - God help us all!

This is certainly one of the most horrifying stories I have read, and I wish it was a science fiction, but sadly not. In the current state of our nation, this is more like a documentary. Published in 1937 with horrifying insight and foresight, it was a clear warning against the danger of American Fascism and its insidious inception and development and predictable results in human tragedies and destruction of democracy. 80 years later, today, I find myself constantly incredulous how tragically we have not learned the lesson from the history of German, Africa, Japan and more. It is eerie to read this book because, it doesn't read like a dystopian fiction, but rather much of this fiction has become our current state---opportunistic, megalomanic demagogue leader, and political parasites in the name of self reliance and all the religious hypocrites, so called free speech bigots, and haters of human and women rights with selective memories.....After reading this book, you will be inconsolable....for a long time.

I picked up this book a LONG time ago while I was otherwise wasting my time in grad school, pursuing a master's. (I finally went and got a real job and quit screwing around.) Not great literature by any means, but it struck me then as a brilliant insight into one way we could wind up with good ole boy tyranny. Americans talk freedom a lot but in the end won't do much to preserve it. Get too uppity and you'll find yourself an enemy of the people and beaten up--or worse-- for your troubles. I found it chilling in 1972 and 45 years later I don't think we've learned a damned thing.

I reread it every couple of years and it still makes my neck hairs stand on end.

I seem to have loaned my ancient copy out onto many times, hence need another one.

“It Can’t Happen Here” is Sinclair Lewis’ satirical prediction of how an All-American dictatorship, led by personable, patriotic deal-maker Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, could rise.

Most of the story takes place in a small town in Vermont, and it’s told through newsman Doremus Jessup’s eyes. Jessup is an established liberal newspaper editor with a capable, unimaginative wife. His family and friends are a full cast of characters. Lewis wrote this when he’d just returned from Germany in the early thirties, and he saw a number of different reactions to Hitler’s rise. Some people saw the danger, some didn’t, and some enthusiastically cheered the Nazis on. I’d guess that some real-life reactions inspired his characters.

Windrip is an interesting villain. “The one thing that most perplexed [Jessup] was that there could be a dictator seemingly so different from the fervent Hitlers and gesticulating Fascists and the Cæsars with laurels round bald domes; a dictator with something of the earthy American sense of humor of a Mark Twain, a George Ade, a Will Rogers, an Artemus Ward. Windrip could be ever so funny about solemn jaw-drooping opponents, and about the best method of training what he called “a Siamese flea hound.” Did that … make him less or more dangerous?”

As a newsman, Jessup he feels the need to stand up for free speech and human rights, but as a social democrat, he believes that the system is sound. It supported his comfortable lifestyle, it gave him what he needed. It must be capable of repairing itself. He says “The hysteria can’t last; be patient, and wait and see, he counseled his readers. It was not that he was afraid of the authorities. He simply did not believe that this comic tyranny could endure.”

And, of course, he was wrong. Most Americans don’t think it can happen here. We believe our Constitution protects us from demagogue wannabes. That’s the genius of this book. Lewis shows us how a master dealmaker could wrap himself up in the flag, carry a cross for good measure and with the right steps in the proper order, shred the Constitution and our system of checks and balances.

Just in case anyone was looking for warning signs, the 7 steps for becoming an All-American dictator are:

1. Give them what they want. Doremus Jessup describes Windrip’s folksy appeal: “watching Senator Windrip from so humble a Boeotia, could not explain his power of bewitching large audiences. The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his “ideas” almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store.”

2. Attack first amendment rights. Encourage Americans to spy on each other. In the book, the problem started in the colleges where “Any member of the faculty or student body of Isaiah who shall in any way, publicly or privately, in print, writing, or by the spoken word, adversely criticize military training … shall be liable to immediate dismissal from this college, and any student who shall, with full and proper proof, bring to the attention of the President or any Trustee of the college such malign criticism by any person whatever connected in any way with the institution shall receive extra credits in his course in military training, such credits to apply to the number of credits necessary for graduation.”

Jessup recognizes this as “fast exploding Fascism”.

3. Attack the fourth amendment – claim that you’re doing this for security or our ‘own good’

4. Build up an army of goons from an angry downtrodden group. Arm, train and encourage them.

5. Make outrageous, clearly pie-in-the-sky promises. Use goons and fervent followers to threaten anyone who isn’t fooled.

6. After you’re elected, don’t follow through on the promises you’ve made.When people are justifiably angry, call the protests a “Crisis”, declare Martial Law and shut down all dissent. This, of course, is for our ‘security’.

“[Windrip compared] the Crisis to the urgency of a fireman rescuing a pretty girl from a “conflagration,” and carrying her down a ladder, for her own sake, whether she liked it or not, and no matter how appealingly she might kick her pretty ankles.”

7. Sit back, enjoy the spoils, and watch your back.

One the store reviewer from Soviet Russia noted that “It Can’t Happen Here” was forbidden in the USSR because Stalin’s censors knew that an imagined fascist hell in America would look too familiar for readers in a “socialist paradise”.

Whenever we’re faced with a boorish racist lout who encourages his followers to beat up dissenters we ask “is this another Hitler?” Maybe he is, or maybe he’s another Mugabe, Erdogan, Assad, Charles Taylor, Papa Doc Duvalier. But although America flirts with the lunatic idea of a ‘benevolent dictator’, it hasn’t come to pass because generally pragmatic and self-reliant Americans would not tolerate it.

That’s the central message behind “It Can’t Happen Here”. We can’t depend on the system to protect us. We have to act to protect ourselves.

Are we still self-reliant and pragmatic, or are we becoming like the characters in Lewis' dystopia? It’s not clear. That's why I recommend this book.

I picked this book up from a local bookstore on a whim last week thinking it would be a good thing to say I've read, especially since I've already read 1984 and Brave New World. I was absolutely blown away by this book. It was written in 1939 but is absolutely timeless and applicable to today -- and any other period in history. I've found myself taking pictures of quotes every few pages just because of how accurately they describe events that have conspired more recently than the publication.

An amazingly prescient book. I was reading it just as Trump's "reign" began. It was first published in 1935, so it is comforting that "this too shall pass", but I hope we only have to survive for four years, not eight. Lewis imagines a very dystopian future, and descent into mindless chaos. Let us hope that American foundations are more resilient. At least Canada is held up as more sensible, though cold of course. Can it happen here? We can only hope not.

In an effort to do more preliminary research about the political attitudes of the 1930s regarding Germany, I read It Can’t Happen Here, my second Sinclair Lewis book after Arrowsmith. This book makes a more lasting impression because of its connection to how people in 1935 seemed to feel about Franklin Roosevelt, Hitler, Communism, unions, and militarism before it gelled into the America First movement which now has my complete attention, whereas I read Arrowsmith when I was going through my epidemiology phase.
The names are more of that awkward personification Lewis shared with Upton Sinclair, who being of like philosophy during the same time winds up a repeated reference point during odd intervals that time would have edited out of the final script. Doremus Jessup is the protagonist, Buzz Windrip the head Fascist, and like Sinclair’s Daniel Plainview the name itself is supposed to be part of the character.
I am surprised to see Lewis’s clairvoyant access into the future. Combined with ambassadorial information from In the Garden of Beasts, it is very apparent that not just the State Department and Albert Einstein but the president on down to factory workers to Midwest farmers knew the patterns of behavior that had already created “pogrom” behavior in Germany and “gulag” behavior in the Soviet Union. The Night of the Broken Glass basically happens in this book, written in 1935, three years before reality. Shad Ledue is the Corpo’s version of Heinrich Himmler, a chicken farmer elevated by cronyism into political power and megalomania. And the propaganda of Vice President Lee Sarason and his play Callin’ Stalin anticipates Stalin’s attempts at artistic demagoguery and complete censorship. To hear some writers and historians discuss it, concentration camps, wholesale executions, torture, and imminent war, as occurs with Mexico in the book, weakly, were all news to Americans past half-way into the war. Lewis proves otherwise, although he of course was part of America First. For him to have drawn that line, times must have been tougher than we would know. I will look into it. Evidently, opposition to Fascism does not equate to interventionism. As this book is a model most of all of Huey Long as president, I am getting closer and closer to reading All the King’s Men. But again, here is another record of the 1930s in which the Great Depression creates political states of mind much more than chronicle hand to mouth existence of families and individuals.

I went looking for this book after reading a review embedded within a political commentary printed recently. Written in 1936, it is a satire written and then reworked for publication in response to the political situation of the time.

It is biting commentary set in trying times. It also reflects our post 9/11 world. It is NOT an easy book but the commentator who suggested it was spot on in that someone could change the names and it might fit well into today's political maelstrom.

Like I have said, hard to read, but stay with it.

US presidential candidate Buzz Windrip is going to pull the country out of economic depression. He's going to tax the rich, and stop big business from abusing the common working man. He's going to create jobs, and as a folksy candidate from the Midwest, he's going to champion "the little guy" and show those Washington do-nothings who's boss. He's also a strong proponent of traditional family values, old time religion, mothers staying at home with their children, and the "lesser races" knowing their place. He has no use for the Commies, the Socialists, or liberal college professors filling up the minds of young people with subversive ideas. In short, he's everything the common white man wants to vote for, and once he gets into office, he's promising to make some big changes.

It sounds like a current "ripped from the headlines" discussion of modern American politics, but Sinclair Lewis published this tale of the rise of an American dictator in 1935. It's scary how relevant this still is today, and how much it really still can happen here.

Think the current Republican candidate for president is an outlier, think again. Sinclair Lewis saw this story way before most of our times. And saw it, sketched it in living satire.
From the manipulation of the so-called religious who also are often found to be bigoted racists too, to the idea of manipulation of the "people" who spend more time on pop culture than reading anything of substance more intense than a fast-food menu, it was seen before. And probably before Lewis.

I read this book because it was suggested it is a lot like what is going on in the US now. While similar feeling it is a drastic look at how people can be manipulated by charming politicians and use racism to convince a nation that they are doing things for the benefit of the people. There are some parts where it seems drawn out and some of the language is a bit hard to understand it is a good lesson on how easily people are manipulated into giving up their freedom for what they are convinced is progress.

Basically this play was based on Sinclair Lewis's book which I find to be very similar to the career of Huey P. Long. FDR was very much worried that Long might have been elected until he was Long was assassinated by a cuckolded husband (supposedly). Long was very charismatic with the common poor folks (black and white) and with the middle class to a lesser degree. My late grandfather said Long could get people to eat horse apples and then want to bake a pie with them for a dinner on the ground. Heck he almost started an in-state civil war with the National Guard on one side and the state police on the other.

It Can't Happen Here

This 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis begins in a small town in Vermont which has the differences of classes and people to represent the United States in a nutshell. There is talk by some to prepare for the next war by military training in college. From that, Sinclair Lewis builds a fantasy 1936 election between two fictional candidates: Walt Trowbridge and Berzelius Windrup. "Buzz" Windrip is a chameleon of a politician who easily adjusts to any audience. [Was he modeled after Huey Long?] But a lot of the references mean little to those born after 1965. Buzz's campaign speech is a clever parody of real politicians: he wanted high wages and low prices, etc. Chapter 8 has the "Fifteen Points of Victory", which may be as satirical today. The fifteenth point creates an Imperial President. [How close are we to that today?] The oratorical skills of Windrip suggest another Wilson, or maybe a Hitler (Chapter 9). Many of the details are now obscure (Chapter 11). Chapter 13 gives the author's opinion of the many reformers who sought a better world. Chapter 17 explains how this Corporate State was organized, and how it controlled and exploited most of the workers, who were now in "labor camps" (company towns?). The resulting inflation allowed Big Business to pay off old debts cheaply, and doubled their wealth (Germany in the 1920s?). Promises made to the people are deferred, then forgotten. A physician who protests the arrest of Doremus Jessup is summarily shot, and his property confiscated; his wife and child left homeless.

The story continues with Doremus Jessup seeking to oppose the rule of Windrip. He starts to print pamphlets (Chapter 26). A modern state, by controlling the press, various associations, and the armed forces, can dominate the population better that in medieval days. The mismanagement by the Corpos is measured by the increasing poverty of the people (Chapter 29). Finally, the Minnie Men come and take Jessup away (Chapter 30). Jessup is beaten, then given a virtual life sentence. "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" said Newton. Effingham Swan discovers this in Chapter 33.

As happens with other criminal gangs, personal conflicts lead to changes. "Buzz" Windrip is deposed by Lee Sarason. Next month Lee Sarason was shot by Secretary of War Haik, who became the new Chief. Haik becomes a Puritan Emperor after purging the administration (Chapter 35). Changes at the camps gave Jessup a chance to escape (Chapter 36), and then cross the border to freedom in Canada. There was a story about Mexican bandits invading a Texas town - when everyone was away! This meant war. But an unanticipated rebellion occurred against the Corpo regime, and split the country. Jessup will be sent back as a secret agent (?) to organize resistance. In the last page Jessup is awakened so he can flee a Corpo posse, and continue the struggle for freedom. Like other dramas, the question of success is left unanswered. This is worth reading, even if as out-of-date as "Looking Backwards, 2000-1887" or "The Iron Heel". They give different views of a possible future. Perhaps the first novel on this subject was "Caesar's Column" by Ignatius Donnelly.

Why “it can’t happen here”? Because there were no infringements on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
The people could protest effectively any attempts at an Imperial President (who acts for the Big Corporations). Is that still true today? I hope so. This story was inspired by a true event, the attempt to stage a coup d'etat during Franklin Roosevelt's first term. The plotter picked a charismatic but patriotic Marine General who denounced the plotters. The promise of “higher wages and lower prices” seems to have inspired the Fair Tax movement, another fraud; it is self-contradictory.

Brilliant. Page after page of compelling reading, written with a skillful combination of tragedy and humor that has been rarely matched by any 20th century author. It's mesmerizing, frightening, funny, and absolutely sobering. In my humble opinion, ICHH stands shoulder to shoulder with '1984' and 'Brave New World' as a cautionary tale for thinking people.

I recommend this deft audiobook rendering by Christopher Hurt of Sinclair Lewis' last true success, "It Can't Happen Here" (1935) and that prediction of an alternate history. It's strange as it happens almost as it's published, more or less. A 1936 FDR's re-election gets shunted aside for a corn-pone fascist recalling that played by Andy Griffith years later in the film "A Face in the Crowd." Berzilius "Buzz" Windrip takes over as president, with a clever calculation of xenophobic rhetoric and progressive bluster that appears buffoonish, until he solidifies power with the 50 million during the Depression desperate enough for "hope and change"--out of a nimble combination of populism, prejudice, and pandering, Windrip, a homegrown dictator with a down-home twang and an aw-shucks demeanor, matches the might of the Hitlers and the Mussolinis, in Lewis' dire (melo?-)drama.

Playing this a year after the Occupy movement started and while the Tea Party tries to balance power-sharing with compromise, it's intriguing to hear of the "League of Forgotten Men" under Peter Paul Prang, Methodist bishop, early on attempting to align anti-corporate cant with pro-nativist slant. It reminds me of how a campaign, if it somehow managed to connect the anti-banker with the pro-populist attitudes, might work itself out in today's America, after what we don't call another Great Depression, but dare to label only a Recession. Communists rally and socialists bicker, but the left cannot block the desperate "League" and their combined alliance with Buzz's right-wing minions. Lewis, from the depths of distress in the 1930s, took a bold move in making his story conform so closely to possibilities extrapolated from real-life scenarios and threats of unrest around him.

Sure, as with any Lewis (see my Aug, 2012 review of the Library of America edition of "Main Street" with "Babbitt"), the abundant preaching, soap-box sermonizing, satirical foils, and the cynical cant can get heavy-handed as our doughty foil Doremus (these names!) Jessup goes to battle on behalf of the editorializing (today he'd be blogging and tweeting), earnest, well-intended but understandably reluctant liberal ethos. However, as Buzz rapidly consolidates control with his uniformed Minutemen, what had been a tottering capitalist system and a parliamentary democracy quickly learn that citizens better call him "The Chief." Or else.

Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America" (see my review) trod similar terrain recently, and that book shared with this one some plot leaps and expository compression. Parts do go on a while, and Lewis can get carried away with his invective and his intricacy of how Buzz's New Order establishes itself. However, seeing this spanned the then-near future of 1936-39, it's amazing how the gulags, concentration camps, and tyranny were anticipated. Also, as the long-winded if appealingly recognizable protagonist calls himself a "small-town bourgeois intellectual," this doughty. sixty-year-old, "well-meaning, cloistered" journalist his wife calls "Dormouse" deflects criticism before we can do so, or his neighbors and then his foes--foreshadowed by Shad Ladue.

I admit a soft spot for sociological literature of this era--I like John Dos Passos' "Manhattan Transfer" and "USA" trilogy, tellingly; this earnest, hectoring, self-consciously inflated, detailed style has fallen long out of fashion from the bestseller list. Similarly, Lewis likes to hear himself talk on the page through protagonists like himself. It's can be awkward now and then but, as with Doremus, it becomes endearing, for the teller (at least sometimes) realizes he carries on.

As eighty-plus others beat me to this book, my comments cheer on the audiobook. Christopher Hurt (for Blackstone Audio) captures the no-nonsense dialogues of Vermonters, the faux-hick accents of skilled operatives in the Beltway and beyond, and the gentler tones of those fearing the dictatorship's tyranny. I urge you to hear this novel, as reading it may tempt you to skim over a lot of the wry, poignant, or impassioned prose that Lewis ladles on: "ape with a manicure," "a human blackboard, "certificates of pedagogy," come to mind out of many well-crafted phrases with a pictorial or punchy effect. Hurt navigates his way through the somewhat-dated contexts skillfully, and highlights the humanity beneath the bluster.

A discovery at the end of 12 hours of this audiobook: Hurt leaves out the last few sentences, on the final page of the Michael Mayer-introduced reprint. He stops at the bottom of the penultimate page, and for me, that improves the conclusion!

I kept nearby that reprint in tandem, to check phrases, look up allusions, and ponder monologues and dialogue. The best parts ironically were the chapter colophons from Buzz's (or that wonderfully oily Lee Sarason) "Zero Hour." They smack of many a ghostwritten political screed or supposed autobiography rushed out a year or season prior to an election run!

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was on-target with this raw look at the dangers of Fascism taking hold in the USA. In these frightful pages an unscrupulous Buzz Windrip is elected President in 1936 on a platform of Corpism - giving all jobless work and each family $5,000. Once elected, Windrup uses his personal police force (Minute Men) to arrest Congress after they refuse to surrender their power. Soon there is martial law, with the Minute Men running forced labor camps for jobless, and concentration camps and special courts for dissenters. Witnessing this is newspaperman Doremus Jessup from Vermont, plus his friends and neighbors. After trying to flee to Canada, Jessup ends up in a Concentration camp. There his fellow prisoners are beaten, urged to turn in their friends, and sometimes shot without trial. After two years of this nightmare, a ray of hope appears. President Windrup is deposed in a coup, his even-worse desposer is murdered in another, and a sort of revolution begins seeking to restore Democracy to the USA.

Sinclair Lewis wrote this book in 1935, two years after Hitler grabbed total power in Germany during the Great Depression. The parallels to Nazi Germany are obvious (Corpos=Nazis, Minute Men=Gestapo). Too bad few saw the danger as clearly as this author. Lewis has a slightly thick style, but these pages soon fly past the reader, and remain a solid reminder of the fragile nature of democracy and freedom.

It Can't Happen Here was first published in 1935. Sinclair Lewis was mindful of the discontent and fear felt by many Americans after years of economic hard times, the rise of powerful voices of extremism in the media, and the increasing popularity of demagogic politicians promising quick fixes. Lewis was thinking of Huey Long, Father Charles Coughlin, and others, but the tale he wove certainly seems applicable to America in 2016.

The hero of It Can't Happen Here is Doremus Jessup, a small town Vermont newspaper editor. As the story begins he watches, with some concern mixed with considerable amusement, the rise of the ambitious Senator Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a fast talking charmer who "says all the right things" and "things that need to be said" in the minds of an increasing number of Americans. The world seems dark and dangerous, with threats closing in from every direction, but Buzz has all the answers, apparently. To an analytical observer like Doremus Jessup what Buzz says doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but plenty of people find him persuasive. The book describes the election of 1936, in which Windrip becomes President, and the aftermath, in which American democracy withers and dies. It's a dark tale, though there are some glimmers of hope in the last few chapters.

It Can't Happen Here is trademark Sinclair Lewis: cynicism mixed with tart tongued humor. Read it, and if there seem to be some ominous parallels with our own time within its pages, take heed, and learn from Doremus Jessup's example.

Sinclair Lewis wrote It Can't Happen Here in 1935 to warn Americans about fascism. Many Americans had similar feelings to the Fort Beulah friends of Doremus Jessup: fascism could not happen here. There are enough similarities between Buzz Windrip, the American fascist elected president in the novel, and the Louisiana senator Huey P. Long, for people to wonder if Sinclair Lewis was referring to the Kingfish.

In reality, Lewis was more concerned about someone like Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler than Huey Long. He believed that an American fascist would appear as a defender of liberty and freedom, cloaked in nationalism. Adolf Hitler took control of Germany through free elections, and gradually reduced dissent through his secret police under the cloak of socialism. He played on the public's fear of communists by first eliminating them. Gradually, he expanded his definition of a threat until nearly everyone came under suspicion, including socialists.

The novel begins with many references to obscure figures of the 1930s. Much like readers of today know of the Octomom, the audience of the Depression knew of the Dionne quintuplets. The reference was not obscure when Lewis wrote the novel, but it is today. Fifty years from now, people will remember Nadya Suleman as well as today's readers know the Dionnes. A reader will probably be able to enjoy the novel without understanding some of these references, but - if you are like me - you'll want to know them. The Wikipedia on the internet proved to be an invaluable resource for such a task.

Governor Eugene Tallmadge of Georgia declared martial law during a textile strike. Cotton Tom Heflin was a white supremacist senator from Alabama. Floyd Olson was elected Governor of Minnesota on a populist-labor stance. When Lewis wrote this novel, Olson was considered a presidential candidate. Olin Johnston was another governor with a populist bent; he was from South Carolina. Norman Thomas ran as a socialist, for president, every four years. Today, there is a school in Murray Hill, a neighborhood of Manhattan, named after Norman Thomas.

Wilbur Voliva was the head of the Zion Community who espoused the flat earth theory. During his tenure, a strict code of morality was imposed in the town of Zion on all persons who set foot inside city limits. It was unlawful for women to wear short dresses, high heels, bathing suits or lipstick. Ham, bacon, oysters, liquor and tobacco were banned, as were drugstores, medical buildings, movie theaters, and globes. A ten o'clock curfew was rigidly enforced. Whistling on Sunday was also prohibited. These laws were enforced by Voliva's police force, called the Praetorian Guard, whose helmets carried the word 'patience' and whose sleeves bore images of doves. Policemen wore Bibles and clubs on their belts. The Praetorian Guard was a perfect image for Sinclair Lewis in writing this novel.

Dr. Francis Townsend was an original proponent of an old-age pension system upon which the Social Security system is based. Milo Reno was the leader of the Farmer's Holiday Movement in Iowa during the Depression. Frustrated with the lack of help for struggling farmers, Reno proposed that they Buy Nothing - Sell Nothing. People have to eat, and Reno felt that the farmers had the upper hand in such a struggle because they had the food needed by people to eat. Violence by radical members of the Farmer's Holiday Association discredited the organization and led to its demise.

Tom Mooney was one of the most celebrated prisoners of the times. He was convicted of the Preparedness Day bombing in San Francisco in 1916, and remained in jail for 22 years, until he was freed when the evidence was too overwhelming that he was not involved in that particular plot. In a way, the Marty Tankleff case is a more recent example of an innocent man who was wrongly imprisoned. One difference is that the Tankleff case only had vague political overtones. The arresting officer still insists that he arrested the right man for the death of Tankleff's parents, even though DNA evidence is contrary.

Bernar McFadden was a physical fitness guru. McFadden had an idea that fasting was actually beneficial for the long term health of people. Actually, his idea is not too corny. It may be better to go without processed foods that are high in trans fat, saturated fat, and sugars, but the body ultimately needs nutrition.

The funniest reference was a turn-of-the-century cartoon figure, Caspar Milquetoast. He was the man who spoke softly and got hit with a big stick, in the words of his humorous creator. By the 1950s, the term Milquetoast was used synonymously with a timid character. I believe I first encountered the word reading a novel of E.L. Doctorow. It is in the dictionary, but people do not use the term in everyday conversation today.

The term "grass widow" is not used today. A few years ago, I encountered the term watching a silent movie, shown at the Brooklyn Public Library. After the movie, I asked a few other people if they knew what the term meant. Although none of us knew, Mr. Webster could translate. People now use the term 'separated' instead of calling someone a grass widow or grass widower. You'll also find the term grass widow used in this novel by Lewis.

With so many names and terms mentioned in the novel that are no longer used, it is odd that few other reviewers consider this novel a cultural artifact. I will say here that I do look for some historical significance in most of the novels that I read.

Although Lewis stated that his novels do not celebrate the wholesomeness of American life, this particular novel is more downbeat than his novels of the 1920s. `It Can't Happen Here' was too depressing for this particular reader. America became a police state, taken over by the Minute Men, who were modeled on the private police of Adolf Hitler in Germany, and possibly, by the private police of Voliva. There were even theme songs similar to the Horst Wessel Lied that was popular in Nazi Germany. One hundred Congressmen were jailed, habeas corpus was suspended, and justice was meted through military tribunals. Some can argue that these actions have occurred in America during the Civil War, just after the Civil War, and during the Iraq War of the George W. Bush administration - but they have never occurred to the degree that events occurred in this novel. In that respect, the scenario of Sinclair Lewis was not realistic.

There are reasons why this novel can intrigue many readers. It does reflect a realistic concern of the 1930s, perhaps not in America, but certainly in Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union. Sinclair Lewis is a fine storyteller, although one could opine that he was not at the top of his game when the story was written. It is hard for any author to match the game that Lewis brought to his novels of the 1920s. Lewis also discussed the threat of fascism before it became an international concern. The story was entertaining, and the reader could always hold out hope that the New Underground could overthrow the fascist regime installed by the elected president Buzz Windrip. The Lanny Budd series of Upton Sinclair was a better depiction of the horrors of international fascism.

Sinclair Lewis wrote this novel years before Lanny Budd, and well before others in America noticed the danger of dictators in Italy and Germany. "It Can't Happen Here" was a well-deserved best seller for Lewis, but today, other novels with the same theme have surpassed it.

Written in 1935 ... and now 82 years later ... a hint at what he was then talking about has appeared ... as the late Hunter S. Thompson remarked ... we've bought the ticket ... now its time to take the ride. America ... or most of the 99% are going to pay a steep price for allowing a billionaire to flush what decadency is left in the U.S.of A. down the toilet.

A haunting resemblance to the 2016 U.S. elections. This book was written in and takes place in the mid 1930s after the Great Depression, depicting a time when the people needed something 'different' to believe in, in hopes of a new democracy. But unfortunately, once the power greedy government took power, terror began to reign and life as previously had been known with common civility was instantly turned into a totalitarian society.

I gave this book 4 stars because as captivating as the storyline was, I found it a bit choppy to read as far as the first part of the book went where many characters were introduced at once, which made for a bit of a confusing read and had me backtracking in the book several times. And the dialogue written in vocabulary of those times was sometimes confusing to discern.

It wasn't difficult to see that desperate people were so easily conned by president elect Buzz Windrip who claimed he was a democrat, and used his rhetoric and fake promises - among many other promises that each family would be given $5000 a year as part of his plan to get the country back up on its feet.  Racism was alive and well, and of course, the Jews and blacks were ultimately, not treated equal to the average white American as said democracy was changing into a fascist society.The then GOP was known as 'the Corporates', later to be known as the Corpes.

Doremus Jessup, the main character who the story revolves around, is an editor for The Informer newspaper. He can see what is happening to his country and is hellbent on publishing the truth on current state of affairs while strongly opposed to the sudden and fascist takeover of his government. As with any fascist government, the media will be persecuted if they choose to tell the truth. Slowly but surely people's rights are taken away - women's rights, voting rights, eliminate congress etc. as fake propaganda continues to spread. The story continues with Jessup's objection and defiance of this new government and his will to communicate with the world what is really happening as he takes to joining underground forces to continue his mission of truth along with many other journalists who are captured, beaten, sent to concentration camps and/or eventual death. Eventually, the government catches on to Jessup's opposition and the story unfolds as Jessup and his family are caught defying the new law and the consequences that ensue for his actions.

Spies are everywhere as the appointed 'MM' - minute men become the eyes and ears for the Windrip government to ensure policies are carried out. And it's uncanny to see how easily some friends and family are shallow and blinded by this new corruption, now law, leaving many to become traitors to their own loved ones in the name of the fake promises by a lying dictator.

I will admit this book was a difficult read for me, but because of the parallels to today's U.S. politics, I was determined to continue reading if only for my curiosity to see how the story ended. A recommended and gripping read for people who are curious to learn just how easily people can be swayed by a smooth talker instilling false hope for personal gain.

For years people have been fed a line of garbage that congress is the cause of all our problems and it needs to go. With the War on Terrorism creating a paramilitary force we call the Department of Homeland Security which enforces the unconstitutional act of congress called the ‘Patriot Act’. This one act allows someone to be arrested and held indefinitely to the point you can’t tell anyone you’re being held. Plus you get to be tried in ‘Secret Courts’ run by the military. Why can’t people see that this is what is happening? Our own president that swore he would end all this has amended the constitution of the United States 7 times by executive order. Plus the passing of laws that have led to American deaths. Not to mention the debt we owe the Federal Reserve which controls all out money. Someone needs to update this book and re-release it and show how very true it is today.

It CAN happen here.

It IS happening here...unless....

Read this book, I implore you, and open your eyes.

Then commit yourself to opposing the onrushing tsunami of hate and intolerance.

Dedicate yourself to resisting, with all of your power, the agenda of muzzling the free press and suppressing dissent, instilling paranoia, and hamstringing the judiciary.

Resolve to FIGHT the oppressor, to stand up for those he reviles so callously, and to vigorously defend righteousness and reason.

This is YOUR country, not his. Don't allow it to be stolen away.

I don't normally study too many fictions. The details and bits get absorbed into my subconscious, and eventually "happened" as far as my brain is concerned. Of course, there is some literature where one wants that cerebral infection of bold ideas and beautiful prose; reading those classics ties us with the past, allowing us to share experiences with species-mates of previous generations and, hopefully, improves our own vision of the present. "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis is just such a novel.

"It Can't Happen Here" is an alternative version of the 1936 U.S. presidential election. But, instead of FDR garnering the nomination from the Democratic Party, the nod is given to Berzelius Windrop. Windrop abuses the vulgar side of democracy to get the masses behind him, raises a standing domestic army of "Minute Men" and reverts the U.S.A. to a fascist state.

Lewis's window into these events is through the eyes of Doremus Jessup, a small town Vermont newspaper editor. In Jessup's view, the world has been turned upside down. During the run-up to Windrop's reign, Jessup believed that America would prevail - that plain-talking, thinking people who work hard and view themselves as part of a community would never allow the likes of a fascist into the White House. In the New America, intellectuals and liberals are vilified as unpatriotic, and Doremus Jessup finds himself immediately up against the rising stars of Windrop's administration: those people that had been disenfranchised by the previously free market and those of Jessup's peers willing to secure their own status at the cost of widespread social injustice. Sound familiar?

The corruption of democracy described by Sinclair Lewis is far in excess of the actual state of the American Union. However, I did have to read over 100 pages before the emerging tyrant, Berzelius Windrop, engaged in practices unrecognizable in today's political repertoire. The parallels were uncanny though, and as a hard working, intellectual liberal myself, I have benefited from absorbing Lewis's made up history. "It Can't Happen Here" is a prescient wake-up call that it CAN happen here.

Sinclair Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald and me, spent our formative years in Minnesota. I originally purchased "It Can't Happen Here" to get in touch with my roots. I can strongly recommend this novel to all those Americans (not just those in the North Star State) that favor liberty and community over autocracy and power.

It Can’t Happen Here is one of those books (like Elie Wiesel’s Night) that everyone should read—not because it’s enjoyable, but because it’s necessary. With keen insight, Sinclair Lewis illuminates the fragility of our humanity in the face of power. With startling realism, he depicts the common man’s descent into brutality. Published soon after Hitler’s rise to power, Lewis’ Minute Men mirror the Nazis. Their barbarous treatment of “traitors” in the fictionalized concentration camps parallels the various tortures prisoners suffered in Hitler’s own camps.

It’s easy to see why some readers might pick up It Can’t Happen Here and give up after a few chapters. The first hundred-or-so pages are densely populated with political speeches and dialogue. Most of the text not devoted to this topic is spent describing various characters and their backgrounds. Very little happens in the way of action. Once the corrupt Windrip assumes the presidency, however, the plot steamrolls ahead. As chaos, greed (economic, political, etc.), and savagery pave the way for a totalitarian state, the narrative becomes a train wreck that the reader can’t look away from. What atrocities might happen next? How can the situation possibly get any worse? Lewis doesn’t shy away from the ugly side of human nature; he places it under a microscope, detailing it with such vividness that the reader squirms with discomfort.

A fictional work that is just as nightmarish as Wiesel’s first-hand account of his internment in a Nazi concentration camp, It Can’t Happen Here serves to remind us of the horrors that breed under a fascist state. Highly recommended.

It Can't Happen Here

This 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis begins in a small town in Vermont which has the differences of classes and people to represent the United States in a nutshell. There is talk by some to prepare for the next war by military training in college. From that, Sinclair Lewis builds a fantasy 1936 election between two fictional candidates: Walt Trowbridge and Berzelius Windrup. "Buzz" Windrip is a chameleon of a politician who easily adjusts to any audience. [Was he modeled after Huey Long?] But a lot of the references mean little to those born after 1965. Buzz's campaign speech is a clever parody of real politicians: he wanted high wages and low prices, etc. Chapter 8 has the "Fifteen Points of Victory", which may be as satirical today. The fifteenth point creates an Imperial President. [How close are we to that today?] The oratorical skills of Windrip suggest another Wilson, or maybe a Hitler (Chapter 9). Many of the details are now obscure (Chapter 11). Chapter 13 gives the author's opinion of the many reformers who sought a better world. Chapter 17 explains how this Corporate State was organized, and how it controlled and exploited most of the workers, who were now in "labor camps" (company towns?). The resulting inflation allowed Big Business to pay off old debts cheaply, and doubled their wealth (Germany in the 1920s?). Promises made to the people are deferred, then forgotten. A physician who protests the arrest of Doremus Jessup is summarily shot, and his property confiscated; his wife and child left homeless.

The story continues with Doremus Jessup seeking to oppose the rule of Windrip. He starts to print pamphlets (Chapter 26). A modern state, by controlling the press, various associations, and the armed forces, can dominate the population better that in medieval days. The mismanagement by the Corpos is measured by the increasing poverty of the people (Chapter 29). Finally, the Minnie Men come and take Jessup away (Chapter 30). Jessup is beaten, then given a virtual life sentence. "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" said Newton. Effingham Swan discovers this in Chapter 33.

As happens with other criminal gangs, personal conflicts lead to changes. "Buzz" Windrip is deposed by Lee Sarason. Next month Lee Sarason was shot by Secretary of War Haik, who became the new Chief. Haik becomes a Puritan Emperor after purging the administration (Chapter 35). Changes at the camps gave Jessup a chance to escape (Chapter 36), and then cross the border to freedom in Canada. There was a story about Mexican bandits invading a Texas town - when everyone was away! This meant war. But an unanticipated rebellion occurred against the Corpo regime, and split the country. Jessup will be sent back as a secret agent (?) to organize resistance. In the last page Jessup is awakened so he can flee a Corpo posse, and continue the struggle for freedom. Like other dramas, the question of success is left unanswered. This is worth reading, even if as out-of-date as "Looking Backwards, 2000-1887" or "The Iron Heel". They give different views of a possible future. Perhaps the first novel on this subject was "Caesar's Column" by Ignatius Donnelly.

Why “it can’t happen here”? Because there were no infringements on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
The people could protest effectively any attempts at an Imperial President (who acts for the Big Corporations). Is that still true today? I hope so. This story was inspired by a true event, the attempt to stage a coup d'etat during Franklin Roosevelt's first term. The plotter picked a charismatic but patriotic Marine General who denounced the plotters. The promise of “higher wages and lower prices” seems to have inspired the Fair Tax movement, another fraud; it is self-contradictory.

"It Can't Happen Here" is a staggering read, in terms of its unflinching cruel look at reality - the fact that something like what Sinclair Lewis describes can very easily happen here in America. Lewis' novel examines the very fragile nature of democracy and how everyday citizens can get swept up in the charisma of a fascist leader. What may make the novel even more astounding in premise is that it was written during the Great Depression before Hitler's most unfathomable intents were made known; much of what happens throughout America in the novel mirrors what happened in Nazi Germany with ordinary citizens turning a blind eye to injustice in the name of reform and prosperity.

The story is told mainly through the viewpoint of Doremus Jessup, the editor of a daily newspaper in a small Vermont village, who always tells the truth no matter what. He witnesses firsthand (and through radio and newswire accounts) the fervor that surrounds the presidential candidate, Buzz Windrip and rightfully fears what will happen to America when Buzz is elected. And with good reason, for Windrip's 'Fifteen Point Plan' includes an impossible scheme to make every citizen rich, except of course for the Jews and Negroes. With Buzz elected as president, America quickly becomes a nightmare of a dictatorship, with everything from speech to education being controlled, with subversives either killed or placed in concentration camps. How can Doremus tell the truth and provide for his family if it means putting everyone close to him in danger? Are one man's moral obligations to what is right worth sacrificing everything for? It's a question that Doremus struggles with throughout the novel.

Sinclair Lewis penned a brilliant and scary satire with "It Can't Happen Here", a story balanced by its odd wit and humor. But the story is too often sidetracked by its very own main character; parts of the story meander for pages with no apparent end in sight. It's almost as if Lewis had more to say on the subject but wasn't quite sure how to work it in to the story. Despite the setting of the mid-1930s, the truly frightening aspect of "It Can't Happen Here" is exactly how applicable it is to today's world. Readers will recognize certain fears and hysteria that have marked these few years since September eleventh, and in a year of presidential elections, this story may make readers think a little more carefully about the power of persuasion.

Many people fear what is happening today in America, especially attempts to discredit the press by calling them liars etc, and a middle class who feels like they aren't getting their fair share, might lead to a fascist takeover.

When I first read Lewis's rendition of a fascist takeover in the America of the Thirties, I thought I understood the feelings of those who suffered the experience -- and why it didn't happen in real life. But now it has happened in real life, with the media rather than a militia leading the takeover. A highly relevant account of a democrat yet fascist America, the condition in which we find ourselves today.

It Can't Happen Here

This 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis begins in a small town in Vermont which has the differences of classes and people to represent the United States in a nutshell. There is talk by some to prepare for the next war by military training in college. From that, Sinclair Lewis builds a fantasy 1936 election between two fictional candidates: Walt Trowbridge and Berzelius Windrup. "Buzz" Windrip is a chameleon of a politician who easily adjusts to any audience. [Was he modeled after Huey Long?] But a lot of the references mean little to those born after 1965. Buzz's campaign speech is a clever parody of real politicians: he wanted high wages and low prices, etc. Chapter 8 has the "Fifteen Points of Victory", which may be as satirical today. The fifteenth point creates an Imperial President. [How close are we to that today?] The oratorical skills of Windrip suggest another Wilson, or maybe a Hitler (Chapter 9). Many of the details are now obscure (Chapter 11). Chapter 13 gives the author's opinion of the many reformers who sought a better world. Chapter 17 explains how this Corporate State was organized, and how it controlled and exploited most of the workers, who were now in "labor camps" (company towns?). The resulting inflation allowed Big Business to pay off old debts cheaply, and doubled their wealth (Germany in the 1920s?). Promises made to the people are deferred, then forgotten. A physician who protests the arrest of Doremus Jessup is summarily shot, and his property confiscated; his wife and child left homeless.

The story continues with Doremus Jessup seeking to oppose the rule of Windrip. He starts to print pamphlets (Chapter 26). A modern state, by controlling the press, various associations, and the armed forces, can dominate the population better that in medieval days. The mismanagement by the Corpos is measured by the increasing poverty of the people (Chapter 29). Finally, the Minnie Men come and take Jessup away (Chapter 30). Jessup is beaten, then given a virtual life sentence. "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" said Newton. Effingham Swan discovers this in Chapter 33.

As happens with other criminal gangs, personal conflicts lead to changes. "Buzz" Windrip is deposed by Lee Sarason. Next month Lee Sarason was shot by Secretary of War Haik, who became the new Chief. Haik becomes a Puritan Emperor after purging the administration (Chapter 35). Changes at the camps gave Jessup a chance to escape (Chapter 36), and then cross the border to freedom in Canada. There was a story about Mexican bandits invading a Texas town - when everyone was away! This meant war. But an unanticipated rebellion occurred against the Corpo regime, and split the country. Jessup will be sent back as a secret agent (?) to organize resistance. In the last page Jessup is awakened so he can flee a Corpo posse, and continue the struggle for freedom. Like other dramas, the question of success is left unanswered. This is worth reading, even if as out-of-date as "Looking Backwards, 2000-1887" or "The Iron Heel". They give different views of a possible future. Perhaps the first novel on this subject was "Caesar's Column" by Ignatius Donnelly.

Why “it can’t happen here”? Because there were no infringements on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
The people could protest effectively any attempts at an Imperial President (who acts for the Big Corporations). Is that still true today? I hope so. This story was inspired by a true event, the attempt to stage a coup d'etat during Franklin Roosevelt's first term. The plotter picked a charismatic but patriotic Marine General who denounced the plotters. The promise of “higher wages and lower prices” seems to have inspired the Fair Tax movement, another fraud; it is self-contradictory.

Even though the book was written over 75 years ago, the theme is playing out in todays political arena. All the characters in the book can be viewed on TV and read about in the media everyday.. The book is so REAL it is telling of the abuse of power by the executive office with no regard to the citizens of the of the United States and the Constitution that governs the political want a bee and we are heading down that path today.
The outcome can be to real

This tale of how fascism could easily arise in country like the United States is laugh out loud funny at first. But as the government sets up camps to control dissidents, and various characters are executed/murdered, the humour pales. The story was written in the mid-thirties, before the worst of the Nazi regime was known, clearly how these things come to pass was know, at least to Sinclair Lewis. The situation and political atmosphere described is frighteningly similar to that currently occuring, meaning the book is not dated at all

What a terrific novel. I laughed all the way through, perhaps even as far as the priestly Falck tending to blemishes on his overcoat in the Trianon Concentration camp. Doremus Jessop is a political hero, in spite of his disregard for organized religion (if he gathers at the home of the Catholic pastor Perefix, who tends to be perhaps closest ideologically). Doremus Jessop, proprietor and cheif editor of the Fort Belulah, NH newspaper, is the protector of Democracy in its truest American form; it takes 350 pages to show just how and why. Humour, in the form of the crispest tongue in cheek political satire, underscores the novel, perhaps even in a suspenseful scene as the young Sissy Jessop attempts espionage in the presence of the lecherous Ledue by attempting to copy his high security keys into wax and toilet paper in Ledue's bathroom. Humour, and suspense, real, tragic suspense, walk hand and hand, compliment each other perfectly. This book has serious undertones, displays how unnervingly similar a Gestapo type command could break out over America, and perhaps may still bear relevance despite having been produced in the 1930's, as we witness today a heightened dependence on security and surveillance. This book is relevant.

Gets really uncomfortable really fast if you are looking for parallels to present day United States of America. Not everything matches up perfectly but it’s worth reading for what it says about the time when it was written.

A classic good read, and one that feels frighteningly prescient. It certainly was in 1935 when it was first written, and seems just as relevant in the 2015 political environment of the USA. Fascism comes in many guises, and the book takes the reader through the rise of the Corporatists, resulting in an American Fascist state. The loss of humanity, the sacrifice of freedom for security and the wars of distraction are all themes that repeat in our time. A look at politics and human nature - and a cautionary tale.

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE was published in 1935, during the Great Depression, when totalitarianism was rampant in Germany, Italy and Russia. At the same time, homelessness, labor unrest, and demagoguery were spreading across much of America.

Many thoughtful citizens worried then about tyranny coming to America, though they differed on whether it would come from the right or the left. Today, the book's powerful title remains a household word, even as the book's plot and characters have seemed more and more outdated.

But if the story is so out of date, why is the book back in print and enjoying a new readership during both Republican and Democratic administrations?

I think it's because Americans understand instinctively that tyranny can happen anywhere. Concentration camps and labor camps were not invented by the Germans or the Russians. Today many Americans sense that great economic, political and social change is coming and they are looking for ways to visualize what dangers might lie ahead.

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE remains a powerful dramatization of tyranny at the human level. Its heroes and the villains are timeless, and its relentless progress toward societal collapse resembles what we've seen time after time under despotic rule. The book still offers a useful look at how our lives might change if American democracy were replaced by American tyranny.

The story begins with lighthearted humor and caricature, as if not taking itself too seriously. Then the nastiness starts and the humor turns dark. By the end, it's clear that tyranny happened precisely because so many people assumed that it couldn't.

I suggest you give it a try and see what an American tyranny might look like. Just to make sure you can see it coming.

This is an interesting story of a fictional Fascist takeover of the United States originally published in the 1930s (note: pre-World War II) - during the `golden era' of FDR and around the time that Marine General S. Butler was actually approached to lead an overthrow of FDR and establish a Fascist regime in America (see Jules Archer's book entitled `The Plot to Seize the White House').

The storyline can be summed up by badly paraphrasing some old ideas:
1) When good people don't act, evil persists and wins
2) When they came to take the Jews, I did nothing. When they swept
in to take others at different times, I did nothing. When they
came for me, there was no one left to help me.

The tale begins with an election process where the cultural elite are pushing for change and a presidential candidate to lead them to a different worldview and behavior. Their candidate wins and this misguided elite riff-raff fade into the smelly dustbin of history as he asserts his grab for change and power (this has happened before and will happen again) with his version of `brown shirts' assisting, and humanity suffering the results of the elite's stupidity.

The story continues on with the Fascist takeover and describes the radical changes imposed. The storyline shows the deadly nature of the changes when the main character's (a New England newspaper editor) son-in-law is summarily executed for insulting some junior Fascist leaders while trying to protect the main character in a kangaroo court type proceeding.

The concentration camp sections are more realistic and a lot more humane than those of actual World War II Nazi Germany.

The tale concludes with uncertainty. The struggle continues with no resolution after a series of governmental coups and the rebel movement gathering strength.

The author, Sinclair Lewis, has a habit of creating names for his characters which are highly distracting to the reading flow. The book's story line is interesting but is weak overall. The anti-government characters appear and act like foolish amateurs, although the government hacks are portrayed as more criminally inept in the plot. Another interesting feature of this pre-WWII novel, are the occasional brief references of the solidarity of fascist in America and their kind in Germany and Italy.

Considering the fears of a segment of American society and considering the political climate in America in 2009, this book is an important cautionary tale. Another thing to remember, during the 1930s many cultural and business elite did envy and wanted to imitate Hitler and Nazi Germany. Plus, business corporations have never had as much power and ability to control and dominate things as they do now within the United States (see `Shock Doctrine' by Naomi Klein for some examples).

Given that Sinclair Lewis published this book in 1935, it is difficult to imagine that he wasn't influenced by the little known, aborted attempt by some of America's leading industrialists to promote a military coup in 1934, an attempt to oust control of the U.S. Government from FDR that may only have been prevented by the democratic integrity of General Smedley Butler. Regardless, Lewis penned his own version of a corporate/Fascist takeover that begins with demagogic populism and ends with armed militia, State control of the media, racism, and eventually, concentration camps and executions.

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE is an extraordinary book, but not for its literary merit. On that score, the book is provincial and horribly dated. Lewis's writing style features convoluted run-ons and his dialog is often laughable. The book's plot grows increasingly over-the-top as the story progresses (including two assassinations in the White House, no less), the characters are absurdly stereotyped, personal relationships are superficial at best, and the characters' names (Macgoblin, Itchitt, Cowlick, Coon, Reek, Skittle, Reverend Paul Peter Prang, Perley Beecroft, Senator Porkwood, and an avid pro-Communist with the inevitable first name, Karl) hearken back to the days of Nathaniel Hawthorne, medieval morality plays, and THE CANTERBURY TALES. For reasons I couldn't fathom, Lewis also seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with Upton Sinclair.

So why read IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE? Divide the book into two elements, the setup and the resolution. The resolution is heavy-handed, more a prediction of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia than any likely events in the United States. By contrast, the setup is brilliant, and remarkably prescient of today's political environment. Consider just a few aspects of the novel:

-- A President lacking in intellectual capacity but blessed with a Zelig-like ability to appear as a regular guy and everyone's drinking buddy, "...almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his `ideas' almost idiotic...his celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store...[who would] jab his crowds with facts and figures - figures and facts that were inescapable even when, as often happened, they were entirely incorrect."

-- A mysterious Presidential advisor cum puppet master, a wizard at politics and P.R. who "scientifically" builds up his candidate over seven years and then engineers the President's populist campaign, one that includes "tax reform" through the promise of painless, debt free grants of $5,000 to every American family.

-- A holier-than-thou Presidential advisor who engages in homosexual orgies.

-- A blatantly pro-Christian and anti-feminist Administration that opposes the teaching of evolution.

-- A Presidential Administration dominated by Big Business and run in the name of, and for the benefit of, Big Business.

-- An evangelical Christian radio minister who commands a virtual army of followers called the League of Forgotten Men.

-- An administration whose first objective is to elevate the power of the Executive by simultaneously weakening the role of Congress and all but dismissing the Supreme Court.

-- An administration that maintains complete control over information flow, asserts editorial control over the mass media, issues false and misleading pronouncements, suppresses independent reporting, and doctors its own statistics.

-- A mass exodus of Americans to Canada, evolving eventually into a white Underground Railroad when America's borders are sealed.

-- A President surrounded by like-minded yes men, isolated by his staff from the truth, and increasingly removed from contact with ordinary citizens.

-- A Presidential Administration that concocts a phony war with Mexico to create an external bogeyman and distract the citizenry from the country's true problems.

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE is indeed happening here, at least in part. This book paints a deeply troubling scenario that makes it well worth reading despite its literary shortcomings. Sinclair Lewis was on the right track, just seventy years ahead of his time. Read it, and pray that the more outlandish parts of this story don't come true as well.

A charismatic, populist Democrat sweeps to power with a promise to restore America’s greatness and prosperity. He then dismantles democratic institutions and brings in totalitarian rule.

Yes, there is a reason why this book is currently trending.

I had read the book many years ago and wanted a reread. However, to begin with, the pages started falling out from the binding as soon as it was opened. This book was supposed to be new so there is no excuse for it to have dried out even though it was a paper back. The print was extremely small and I had to read each page with a magnifying glass. I am still trying to wade through it. VERY DISAPPOINTING.

I gave up on this after about 100 pages. The first few pages were excellent, full of satire and wit. As it wore on, it just became tedious to read. By the time I stopped reading it, it was almost a thought by thought log of one character's activities. Maybe I didn't find it appealing because too much of it was prescient of the current president and those who believed and still believe in him.

This is one of the most unusual offerings from novelist Sinclair Lewis. Unlike many of his previous books, it was written in great haste and the subject matter is exclusively related to electoral politics. In some respects, the material is dated, unlike other totalitarian nightmare novels like "1984" and "Brave New World," because it is set in a fixed place and time. The election in contest is that of 1936 and the question to be answered is whether or not voters weary of the Great Depression are prepared to sacrifice individual liberties and accept fascist dictatorial rule.

Given the political climate in the contemporary USA, this warning from the past still seems relevant today. Too many people seem willing to follow the Pied Piper rather than asking questions and making difficult choices.

The writing style was difficult and certain use of vocabulary made understanding certain situations confusing. However, while the dangerous and uncertain period of the 1930s probably added fear of fascist and communist takeover more likely to occur because of the unrest caused by the Depression and the U.S. government's inability to solve the economic problems, it is a story that should keep Americans vigilant to constantly safeguard their fragile constitutional rights.

To quote one of the characters early on: "Like h*ll it can't."

Windrip is the charismatic politician: a great showman, but not comfortable when people use big words. He's swept into office on a tide of revival tent enthusiasm and anti-intellectual popularism. He promises a pot of money for everyone, and (this is the 1930s, remember) promises to put in their place all the right minorities with the strong arm of his loyal followers. Of course people vote for riches for everyone - or at least, everyone who matters.

Then he's in. The loyal followers become a private army, answerable to no one. The nation is redrawn into a network of concentration camps, prisons, labor camps, and terrified citizenry. The bulk of the book documents the incredibly rapid decline into barbarity. Despite the crushing tyrrany, a resistance emerge, and among people who might not have looked very brave. Without giving any spoilers, the end is ambiguous but optimistic.

The first half of the book is pretty much guaranteed to give you that sinking feeling if you've read the news in (or about) the America of Pres. Bush II. The rise of fundamentalist Christians as a political force has a familiar sound to it. So does the the discussion of "... when the hick legislators in certain states ... set up shop as scientific experts and made the whole world laugh itself sick by forbidding the teaching of evolution."

I want this book to be irrelevant. I want people to look at it and ask "what is he talking about? who could believe even the first word of it?" I want its warning to be forgotten by people who no longer need to be warned. The fact is that this 70 year old book still as relevant, familiar, and as urgent as ever. This book still matters - or should.

//wiredweird

This is a book of 'a 'Liberal', scorned by all the nosiest prophets for refusing to be a willing cat for the busy monkeys ... at worst, the Liberals, the Tolerant, might in the long term preserve some of the arts of civilisation.'
Why is he a liberal? Because 'everything in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit', and 'the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever.'

But this formidable book contains also a clear warning: 'the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and of silencing them forever.' 'We can go back to the Dark Ages! The crust of learning and tolerance is so thin.'

This book is the story of a democratically elected US dictator: a demagogue with a racist and antifeminist agenda, who turns the US into a fascist State: 'He treated the entire nation like a well-run plantation on which the slaves were better fed than formerly, less often cheated by their overseers, and kept so busy that they had time only for work and for sleep.'
This book is the work of a visionary (Mao's China, Franco's Spain, Stalin's USSR, Pinochet's Chili, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Suharto's Indonesia, Hitler's Germany, Castro's Cuba...): 'People were afraid to say whatever came to their tongues ... men looked about to see who might be listening before they dared so much as say there was a drought ... for someone might suppose they were blaming the drought on the Chief.'
Opponents were incarcerated, shot or put in work-camps. Books were gleefully burned and the media turned into mere propaganda.

The fascist State here, however, is torn asunder from within (personal infighting, power cliques, brutal murders) and from without (those people who without fear of their lives continued to fight for freedom, democracy and tolerance).
The main character in this book, a courageous editor of a newspaper, should be an example for today's newsmen, who are completely gagged by the powerful and paralyzed by autocensure.

Sinclair Lewis is also not blind for general human weaknesses: permanent insatisfaction, envy, following of prophets 'who had felt called upon to stir up the masses to save the world and save it in the prophet's own way', or falling for 'men of superior cunning, of slyer foxiness than slower-witted men, however worthy.'

This book is a tremendous achievement and still very actual.
A must read.

Sinclair Lewis' greatest achievement with "It Can't Happen Here" is his ability to reflect the subtle holds that Fascism can take in an otherwise rational and democratic country. Each step of the plot, no matter how seemingly insignificant or unrelated, contributes to the inevitable political conclusion. As the story progresses, it gradually becomes clearer to the reader how our individual prejudices and selfish desires can collectively turn us against the very freedom America prides itself upon.
Fascism is here viewed as an implosion of American culture: the weight of mass media, of the desire for security and comfort, and of endemic nationalism caves in at the touch of a charismatic politician. Lewis exposes the weaknesses in our country's foundations; he shows a careful yet precarious balance of society and politics where we otherwise think we are solid. As others have noted, this book preceded the rise of Nazism in Europe. It is a testament to Lewis' grasp of fascism that much of his novel was mirrored in the chaotic climate of 1930's Germany and Italy.
Where the book falters, however, is in some of its more outlandish caricatures of the villains, including orgies, bed-time assassins, and overwrought speeches. Despite the power of these metaphors, they weaken the plausibility of "it can happen here." Nonetheless, this novel serves as an excellent warning against the dangers of cults of personality and of mob mentality. I strongly recommend "It Can't Happen Here" to remind anyone that the freedom of thought should not be taken for granted.

Sinclair Lewis had his time in the 1920s. He poked fun at the middle classes, and it was a success. Main Street, Babbitt, Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, Dodsworth were his bestsellers. He won the Pulitzer for fiction (and rejected it), he won the Nobel (and took it). And then the Great Depression came and annihilated his subject.

He had to look for a new one, and found politics (which had not been entirely absent before either, but had always come along in a mocking tone). He changed his stance from satirical observer of the presence to satirical prophet of the possible future. The difference is marginal. He was still scornful about the world that he saw. The world was probably scornful about him --- apart from the fact that his prophecy of American fascism was a huge bestseller. So there was some gumption in the country, the Americans were not all proto-fascists or Bushists or Palinists... Sorry, I got carried away here.

The nonsense spoken in the past by the good citizens was so much like what I read and see today, it is uncanny! I had thought the `freedom fries' stupidity after the French `desertion' from the Iraq `coalition of the willing' was something new. I learned from Lewis (and maybe I had known it before, but had forgotten) that good American patriots turned sauerkraut into liberty cabbage during WW1.

Listen to the general's speech at the Rotarian ladies' annual dinner in Vermont 1936! An outburst of epidemic patriotism, spiced up by the Daughters of the Revolution (do they still exist? I wouldn't be surprised at all. As Lewis wrote: for the first 50%, they glorified the Founding Fathers, thereafter they attacked everything that these men stood for), it sounds so like Rush How-low-can-you-get, it really is uncanny. Where did Lewis get this prophetic power?

The story is set in Vermont in 1936 (published 35!), in a town of perhaps 10000 souls and 20000 bodies (and Lewis even questions whether that many bodies were inhabited by souls). We accompany 60 year old Doremus Jessep (`Dormouse'), the town liberal, on his peregrinations through the world of awakening US fascism. He says early on that no country in the world can get more hysterical than the US.

While much sounds familiar and similar to contemporary politics, the profile of the main negative hero, fascist politician and then President Windrip (nice name), is not what we would see today. Windrip wins with a populist campaign that combines high income taxation, higher salaries for everyone, and import barriers with anti-unionism, anti-redism, anti-feminism, anti-intellectualism, anti-semitism, anti-everything not Christian- ism, outright racism against the black population, aggressive expansion of militarism, suppression of free thought and speech and wild threats of war.
Windrip's SA is called the MM, as in Minute Men, with white or khaki shirts. As one of them says so convincingly: Windrip puts an end to all this free speech and libel of American institutions.
His election campaign includes openly an announcement that he will introduce an emergency law, which will sideline the Supreme Court and give absolute power to the President.
True to fascist movements, the anti-big money rhetoric is nothing but a protection racket. The anti-Jewish attacks are blackmail for campaign support.

Once the inauguration is over, all hell breaks loose...
Emergency is declared, things then develop in the same way as in Germany: terror from above, rule of law is abandoned, concentration camps are started, opponents are murdered... (written in 1935, which was fairly early during the Nazi rule; Lewis had the benefit of insider information from his wife Dorothy Thompson, who was a journalist in Europe with access to German information. On daily life under a dictatorship read Brecht's Fear and Misery in the Third Reich. Lewis is not much different, except geographically.)
And the mocking tone stops.

Just to avoid misunderstandings: the man Windrip is nominated for the presidency by the Democratic Party, in 1936. The party refuses Roosevelt a second term. Roosevelt starts his own Jeffersonian Party but loses the election. The candidate of the Republican Party is the hero of the story: he loses, goes into exile and starts resistance from Canada. So no simple 2 party warfare here.

My assessment of the novel: 5 + stars for political interest; not more than 3 + for artistic value. This was a quick shot and suffered from most weaknesses of Lewis's earlier novels. Total 5 minus.

This novel was written durring the depression of the 1930s as an imaging of how a Hitler like figure could come to power in the United States. Today it reads like a horrifying history book from the near future. For the love of all that is good in America please read and understand what is at stake for the future of freedom.

I read it in the summer of 2016, and wasn't sure I could finish it because I felt like I was reading current headlines. Unfortunately, it DID happen here, and I KNOW I couldn't read it now.

Avoid this book if you have PTSD; that's about all I can say. It's really scary.

Weird; a book with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Weirder is how, if one didn't know when it was written, a reader might see it as being about any number of events and regimes in the last 80 years, including some very recent ones and some ongoing international actions. As a dystopia, it's one of the better books I've read lately. I wasn't fond of the writing style, including the many, many offhand references to authors I've never heard of in order to communicate everything those authors communicated and more. Dry in places, most engaging in the final third, and still somehow relevant, I don't know whether to recommend this book, or who to. (Copied from my Goodreads review)

Sinclair Lewis is a great author, whose more celebrated novels (Elmer Gantry, Main Street, Arrowsmith, Babbit) all portray middle-American life in the early 20th Century (the good and bad). Lewis is unafraid to satirize and lampoon the most disgraceful features of our culture.
"It Can't Happen Here" was written after his career had peaked and is not quite of the standard of the above works. Lewis was very concerned about the rise of fascism in the 1930's and the indifferent (or even sympathetic) reactions many Americans had to it. His point was that totalitarianism could happen here, particuarly in such a mood of indifference and denial.
The book is a fascinating portrayal of the ascension of Senator Buzz Windrip, who upsets FDR for the Presidency in 1936, on a 15 point, fascisitic platform (state control of all banks, huge buildup of the military, persecution of Jews and unbelievers, subjection of blacks, etc.). Within six months, Windrip manages to abolish state governments, consolidate all universities, mussle the press (including the books main character, Doremus Jessup), etc. Riots and revolts break out, but they're repeatedly crushed by Windrip's private army, the Minute Men.
In time, Windrip sets up concentration camps for all dissenters, while likewise employing a successful state propaganda organ to convince the world that life in America is much better. But a massive resistence movement develops, joining socialists, liberals, even mainstream conservatives (it's lead by Windrip's Republican opponent in the '36 election), and staged from Canada.
The book centers around the life of Doremus Jessup, small-town Vermont newspaperman, and his family, in their active resistence to the "Corpo" regime. Though his life is destroyed by the end, Jessup continues to work for the revolutionary movememnt (which succeeds in invading much of the midwest afterwhich Windrip is overthrown in a coup by his cheif aide).
The book is a fun read, and evokes much sympathy for the Jessups and their co-conspiriters. At the same time, it lacks the careful realism of Lewis' other works. The time-span is less than three years, which is fairly implausible. Lewis fails to address the fact that the U.S. (like Great Britain and Canada) is fundamentally different in background than Germany, Italy or Russia. America's strong democratic tradition and passion for individual liberty would make establishing and maintaining a successful dictatorship would be very difficult here (though perhaps not impossible, particularly in the depths of the Depression). Certainly, it'd take more than a few years and would involve much more bloodshed than depicted in this book.
However, Lewis' book is quite thought-provoking. One of the byproducts of our successful democracy is that Americans often take their most basic rights (such as free speech and association) for granted. This book forces one to reflect on how lucky we are to live where we do and when we do, and always be vigilant in defense of our rights. In this era, with Bush and Ashcroft trying to curtail some of those rights in the name of "homeland security", such reflection is needed.
I reccomend "It Can't Happen Here", but not to those unfamiliar with Sinclair Lewis. Read at least one of his better works (listed above) first.

"It Can't Happen Here" is Sinclair Lewis' precient tale of an oafish, charismatic leader taking over the United States and instituting a facist mode of government. Grim as the subject of this book may be, you can rest assured that democracy in this counrty is not being replaced by a religeo-facist mode of government. You can rest assured that we have fair elections in which the governors of Florida and New Mexico do not illegally disenfranchise Black and Hispanic voters. You can rest assured that the owner of a voting machine company in Ohio does not contribute money to the ruling party and vow to deliver his state's electoral votes to the ruling party's candidate. And you can rest assured that his company's voting machines are not closed systems with no method of verification.

You can rest assured that the ruling party does not send paid operatives into a contested state during an election to intimidate vote counters. You can rest assured that a terrorist mastermind whose family has decades of business relationships with the ruling party leader's family will not somehow find a way to lead a cataclysmic attack on New York and you can definitely rest assured that the ruling party won't succeed in lying and covering up their own failure and complicity in this event.

You can rest assured that the ruling party won't use terrorism as a pretext to erode our civil liberties and give itself absolute power. You can rest assured that the ruling party will not officially sanction torture in places like Guantanamo, Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in the numerous countries to which it sends its political prisoners for interrogation.

Most importantly you can rest assured that the ruling party is sane and objective. You can rest assured that it listens to the world's scientists who overwhelmingly agree that we are on the brink of an irreversible environmental cataclysm. You can rest assured that it listens to its generals when they state that more troops are required to successfully govern an occupied country. You can rest assured that they listen to their economists and security experts when they request urgent attention to an issue of grave importance even if it does not conform to the ruling party's ideology.

You can rest assured that we are not living in a nation where the President's top political adviser would expose a patriotic member of the intelligence community to get revenge against her husband, and we do not live in a country where this person would get away with such a crime through continuous lies and obfuscations.

We do not live in a nation where the unelected, illegally installed fascist regime would destroy the middle class, and wage war on the poor in order to further bloat the already porcine class of billionaires with yet more tax cuts. We do not live in a religious theocracy in which the highest courts are run by fundamentalists who want to interpret every law according to their personal faith. And we do not live in a nation in which the mass media and government are owned by corporations that bombard us with lies and brainwashing on a minute-by-minute basis.

So when you read "It Can't Happen Here", remember that this is just a fictional "what if" book written in the thirties and is in no way suggestive of our present reality.

I am happy to see this book listed as best seller. As I read the book, I felt the way I felt on reading 1984 - the ink was still wet from being so recently printed, like, yesterday. Absolutely incredible - it is no wonder that everyone else is reading this with jaws dropping as it is so relevant to the present day. Read this book.

Lee Roscoe has recently (© 2005) adapted Sinclair Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here to the stage. This play is a militant agitprop work and is available to people who want to produce it for an audience in a militant perspective to fight against the present erring developments of Bush's presidency and to advocate the necessity to impeach him and his vice-president as the last defense against their systematic attack on the Constitution, hence the American people and the World's population. This enables us to rediscover the plot imagined by Sinclair Lewis in the mid 30s who was afraid of the possibility for a populist candidate to become President of the US and lead the country to some kind of fascist dictatorship. Apparently this fear is being revived in the world, or rather in some countries by the war on terror launched by President Bush and that has brought some fairly frightening developments against basic civil rights: the possibility for the police to know what you borrow or check in and out in public libraries and the restriction under which the librarian is not to tell you about it; the negation of habeas corpus for a whole set of people who have been imprisoned in Guantanamo for years without any basic constitutional or plainly universally recognized rights like the possibility to communicate with the outside world, the right to have a lawyer, the right to be informed about the charges that are leveled at them, the right to be tried in a normal court in due time and following proper procedures, etc (the procedure is so unbelievably wrong that quite a few of these prisoners have been released without any charges after several years of detention amounting to so many years of suffering, social cultural or professional damage, and even psychological torturing, and no damages, compensation or reparation when released); and of course the normal reaction of some American people who believed what they were told and started leveling harsh words at opponents and even at times taking harsh measures against opponents. The text of this play is being circulated on the Internet. The same mindset is developing in other countries, like for instance in France where some consider that the election of Nicolas Sarkozy for instance is leading to the same kind of mechanism that will necessarily lead to a police state if not fascism.

The process imagined by Sinclair Lewis is simple: a populist elected candidate and the defense of the absolute freedom of all markets to liberate the creative energy of capitalism and get us out of all possible crises. This will lead to work camps for unemployed people; the ruin of all independent newspapers and the hunting down of all alternative expression and media as unpatriotic if not anti-patriotic; the ruin of all businesses that do not support the policy of the President; the creation of some kind of militia to keep an eye on everyone; the increase of the powers of this militia that would have authority over all other police forces and even over justice. Of course one of the first triggering elements this President would need is some menace from a foreign country, hence a war against this menacing country, be it true or imagined, and a designated accomplice inside the country defined as anarchist, communist or terrorist. And the old world is then perverted enough for fascism to be born in the very sanctuary of human rights and civil liberties, and then "M and M" becomes Militia Man.

It is interesting to see this revival. It reveals several elements that we must keep in mind if we want to understand what is happening in the world. People are really afraid of the future in this changing world. People are afraid of change because it precisely is change and comfort means no change.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne

Should surprise no one that the right-wing fascist trash and their paid trolls come flocking in to hammer this book, considering that it laid out their agenda long before Trumpism ever reared its ugly face.

I give this book mixed marks, but I still recommend it. Its premise and argument get five stars; its execution as a novel may get two. I think the premise of this book shows flashes of genius, and several aspects of it are still both funny and chilling by turns. The features of the book that are most clever are its conception of what an American fascist president would look/ sound like, and its sketch of how power may change hands from a rational democracy to a corporatist/ fascist state. "Buzz Windrip," the "Corpo"-party's figurehead, is anti-federal, anti-press, pro-corporation, willfully anti-intellectual, speaks in a chummy, populist idiom, and he drips with sentiment and religiosity. His brown-shirt-like security force, which eventually supersedes the national army, is called "The Minutemen," and they wear quaint, throwback uniforms. One notes Windrip often says things that Michelle Bachmann or Rick Perry or similar "folksy" candidates nowadays intone. E.g., "When I am protestingly dragged from my study and the family hearthside into the public meetings . . . I try to make my speech as simple and direct as those of the Child Jesus talking to the Doctors in the Temple." We know this personality on the major political stages moreso in 2011 than we would have in 1960, oddly, when it was cooler to be rational in politics than it is now (God help us). Sections of Windrip's ghostwritten autobiography called "Zero Hour" are highlights of the book and seem like they could have been written by several known candidates within the last five years. As a cultural argument, this book is often good: e.g., the Corpo University, filled with sports, military rituals, and bland engineering courses, is made a utilitarian cog in the statist machine in ways suggesting not only counter-reformation-style "patriotic" editing of textbooks and setting of curricula (see Texas, 2010), but also state universities that have devolved into technical colleges for "citizens" or consumers rather than places that encourage robust thinkers. But as serious fiction, the book struggles to define its characters, who mostly remain prototypes, and worst of all, the action in the book is often rendered in sketchy, synoptic ways that resemble an authorial outline. Lewis wrote this book quickly, and it wasn't to its benefit. Lewis seems to impatiently avoid giving events in the novel any gradual drama, poetry, or suspense: rather, the novel is a rapid (and long) catalog of events that merely . . . "happen." That many of the events are tragic, darkly funny, and plausible, doesn't redeem the novel from its rather hackneyed style and mode of development.

This novel seems better plotted than other Lewis books, including Main Street, Babbitt, Elmer Gantry, and Arrowsmith. Also, in comparison to these other novels, Lewis spends more time developing characters other than the protagonist (in this novel the protagonist being Doremus Jessup, a newpaper editor). Buzz Windrip, the fascist Senator who wins the 1936 presidential election; Windrip's Secretary of State Lee Sarason; and Shad Ledue, Doremus Jessup's handyman, all seem more fully fleshed out than characters of similar status in Lewis's earlier novels.
Readers interested in twentieth-century American politics will find this novel very entertaining. Buzz Windrip's political platform, which promises to establish limits on personal wealth (particularly that of African-Americans), to enact governmental control of "big money," and to limit the power of labor unions, appeals to the public in the same contradictory way as Bill Clinton's 1992 platform, which called for both tax cuts and increased government spending. (And in the same fashion as a conservative Republican platform that calls for less government influence over private lives but, at the same time, more laws to protect and uphold "middle-class family values.")
As a fan of Lewis's more light-hearted satire, as seen in Babbitt, I found the darkness of this novel difficult to take. The only parts that made me smile were the quotations from Buzz Windrip's campaign autobiography, Zero Hour, that appeared at the beginning of several chapters. But how can you make funny the takeover of America by humorless, bloodthirsty fascists, who hope to annihilate all opposition to Buzz Windrip and his plans to control every cent that is spent, every idea that is thought, and every word that is spoken?
On the whole, this novel isn't Lewis at his best. However, it isn't a disappointing novel, and anyone who likes to watch political talk shows or read about politics and politicians should find it worth their time.

This book is an excellent book to read to get a snippet of political insight. However, don't be fooled by the reviews linking the main character to Trump. Let's look at the rioting as mentioned in the book. Are the rioters like BLM, Occupy Wall Street, and many many others linked to Trump? No they are linked to the left. The other candidate tried to bully and riot in fact. Open your mind.

The book is bloated and the plot tends to get away from Sinclair. If you are looking for dystopian novels, 1984 would be a much better selection. This being said, it is still worth the time to read, especially now.

Some of the elements of "It Can't Happen Here" were specific to Lewis's time. The home-style fascism he adapts from the European version of the 1930s succeeds by a demagogy that might have worked during the Depression, but would be political suicide nowadays: in an imagined 1936 election that unseats FDR, the empty-headed "Buzz" Windrip wins the presidency by promising a minimum income for all American families and a wealth cap on the rich. Could anyone dream of such a platform succeeding today (outside Berkeley or Santa Monica)?

Still, there are elements that make this book riveting and current: the manipulation of fear and greed, the polarization, the demonizing of opponents, and the absolutism of ideology: Either you're on our side - totally, unconditionally - or you're a traitor.

While I found some plot turns a little hard to swallow - most notably, the speed with which Buzz and his cohorts (he has a Karl Rove-like handler) are able to break down America's legal system and impose rule by thuggery - the central idea that hallowed traditions like rule of law and checks and balances can, under the right conditions, be subverted, is something we really need to think about. Fear and laziness are indeed democracy's enemies.

Although this novel is known largely for its still-timely political and sociological insights, it has much more to recommend it - humor, suspense, violent adventure, and even some domestic drama with a couple of surprising twists. Apart from a few long-winded pages here and there, it's fast-moving and highly entertaining. I've seldom raced through a book so quickly (while still reading every word) just because I was so interested in seeing what would happen next.

The book concerns itself with the rise of a totalitarian state in the 1930's in The United States, and the effect of that regime on the nation and world, in general, but specifically, on the lives of a group of characters living in rural Vermont. It is quite excellent in a number of ways:

First, it was published in 1935. It is hard to really keep that in mind when one reads it. It is important, however, to keep that date clear, as without it, the enormity of the work's prescience gets lost. Lewis paints us a perfect picture of totalitarianism, here, in a time when Hitler had just announced re-armament and the formation of The Third Reich and Stalin' Great Purge was still in the future.

Secondly, it shows us perfectly how a neo-fascist ideology could take hold in America, and win an election, built on traditional American values, and using the same words our politicians regularly use to sway us. He totally captures the language and attitude of the uneducated voter toward those they vote for. Strip away the idioms and technology of Depression-Era rural Vermont and we see ourselves, today in in 2000, in 2004, in 2008, in 2012, in 2016...

Lastly, and most brilliantly, Lewis shows us Fascism rising not from the right, where you would expect it, but from the left. He shows us how an uneducated population's fuzzy warm feelings about Socialism, and worker solidarity, and the poor, can be harnessed and directed toward an agenda that achieves the opposite. This is such an important lesson and is so rooted in the rise of real Fascism.
Those strengths aside, however, I did not love this book like I wanted to.

I am a fan of Lewis' work. "Main Street" was very good and "Babbitt" was absolutely brilliant. I think, though, that he does less well with this subject matter. A story like "It can't Happen Here" requires a different approach, and style to writing than what Lewis brings. Scenes that require drama and action pass with only Lewis' dry, detached realism, and it is a real shame. Only once, in a long book, was I actually "drawn in."

My second problem with the book is that the character we are given as protagonist is a bit of a joke. While the character's (and author's) criticism of "isms" and solid understanding of the shortcomings of the radical left are relevant, the sort of rational liberalism he espouses is annoying and only shallowly examined.

While it is probably true that Fascism would arise in America and we commies would still be bickering over who was the "true" bearer of the Marxist torch, rather than working together, the character fails to grasp that his sacred "middle of the road" liberalism is exactly the system that created the swamp of decay that brings about reactionary Fascism.

So, in the end, Lewis' lesson seems to be that there are no answers whatsoever in politics and if one must be political (and I think he says one must) one simply does what one can, where one can, without really ever wanting any one side to get what they want.

I imagine the ultimate expression of this doctrine would be someone who votes Democrat for eight years, then Republican the next eight, before switching back once more, believing the solutions lie in not letting any party get the power to change America, which was probably good enough already.

How depressing.

This novel is timely again as the United States experiences political challenges from populism coming against institutionalized power. Plato's Republic, Machiavelli's The Prince, and Sinclair Lewis are all primers for political understanding and action.

I purchased this book several years ago and have been loaning it out to friends and family the past year. It stood on its own as a work besides books like "Babbit" and "Elmer Gantry" when I first read it but it's very chilling to read now given today's political climate.

"If the people of a democracy are allowed to do so, they will vote away the freedoms which are essential to that democracy." - Snell Putney

Most of what Sinclair Lewis wrote since he won the Nobel Prize isn't worth reading. It Can't Happen Here is a notable exception, perhaps the only one. The "It" in the title refers to a fascist regime taking over the United States. The easy reply is that it HAS happened here; proving so is a bit more challenging. Very well then, let's.

One of Lewis' traits is to date every book he writes; another is to inject real people into his fictional stories. Both habits reduce his timeless commentary and observations to period pieces, which may be why his books aren't much read any more.

The story starts in 1936, when fascism had already invaded several European countries, and threatened to spread. It follows a small-town newspaper editor through the U. S. presidential election campaign and its aftermath. Berzelius Windrip ("Buzz" to his friends, "Buzzard" to his detractors) wins the election by promising immediate relief from the economic depression, and immediately clamps down. His followers, dubbed "Minute Men", enforce Windrip's various whims.

Those who express opposing viewpoints are treated as enemies of the regime, and are jailed, or worse. When the prisons become full, concentration camps open. Executions multiply exponentially. Soon, enemies are found within the ranks, and the dictatorship starts feeding on itself. Two coups later, the military has taken over, and war against an easy victim is declared.

Meanwhile, an underground resistance is formed. Initially, it's easily infiltrated and quashed, but as the military demands more and more men, internal policing is diluted, and resistance is, if not completely uninhibited, at least easier to accomplish.

The novel invites comparisons to today's political situation:

Does the successful candidate who promised a better economy deliver a worse one? Naturally.

Is the President a mere front for more sinister interests? Accurate.

Are judges replaced with cronies? Legally.

Do vicious thugs enforce laws, some of which exist? Check.

Do loyal Brown Shirt types do the dirty work? Bush uses entrenched government enforcement personnel for that. The closest private equivalent would be rabid talk show hosts.

Does mindless patriotism mask far deeper problems? Perhaps you've noticed.

Travel restrictions? Got 'em.

Are spies everywhere? Not in human form. Orwell foresaw the ubiquitous cameras.

Are old books burned? Christians certainly host such bonfires, and libraries and universities keep their collections "current", but old books can still be found in private collections and used book stores. On the other hand, since the September 11 terrorist attacks, publishers have been shying away from letting "controversial" topics become new books.

Is free speech restricted? You bet.

Are newspapers and other media also restricted? Not necessary - since they've become government, religious and corporate mouthpieces, they censor themselves.

The inevitable war? More than one.

Concentration camps with sadistic guards? Only for foreigners. So far.

Has government provoked paranoia? Why do you ask?

Is human life cheapened, degraded, and expendable? Except for fetuses. Once you're born, you're a target.

Yikes! Does Dubya stand for Windrip?

Some of the parallels weren't new when this book was written. Entertainment as news became big business during the Roaring Twenties. Splitting families apart occurred during the misnamed Civil War. Depending on that vague yet reliable Someone Else to thwart those dastardly Bad Guys is as old as America. And government has always been run by low-lifes.

There are also some differences. Windrip abolished Congress, but Bush has a partisan Congress to do his bidding. Windrip was popular enough that he didn't have to commit election fraud. Bush has yet to be overthrown. And in Lewis' book, the dictator came from the Democratic Party, while the Republicans are the good guys - imagine that.

Still, the similarities far outnumber the discrepancies, and indicate that the United States is on the fast track to fascism, if it's not already arrived. You might try to find and read It Can't Happen Here - before all known copies are burned.

I'm a fan of dystopias. I find the classic dystopias like 1984,Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World to be far scarier than anything in the horror genre. They are usually a great blend of satire and science fiction that provide timely warnings about the various forms that despotism can take and/or how it can come about. When a news article brought this book to my attention after it rocketed up the the store sales chart I was excited to give it a read. On the store it is currently billed as "The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trump's authoritarian appeal" to give it that added "ripped from the headlines" boost. First I'll address the actual book and then the "it's all about Donald Trump!" aspect.

There are reasons that "It Can't Happen" Here has not garnered the fame of the three classic dystopias I mentioned above - and it's not due to some right (or left)-wing conspiracy of suppression. It just isn't as timeless or believable as they are. Rather than setting it in the distant future, Sinclair Lewis placed the action in 1936, only a year or so after the publication date. This leads to a lot of references to contemporary politicians, authors, etc. which have not necessarily aged well. Also, the rapidity and ease with which the president/dictator transforms the US into a totalitarian fascist state after his election (seemingly a matter of days!) seemed completely unbelievable to me. There were aspects of the book that hit the right notes for a dystopia once the fascist state was in full swing, but I was mostly unimpressed (and didn't care much for the hero: a liberal, moderately socialistic newspaper editor who has little use for God or marital fidelity).

In regards to the similarities between President Trump and President/Chief Windrip, the perceived parallels are largely in regard to how/why they were elected. See, for example, this quote describing Windrip's idealistic supporters (alongside the "bullies and swindlers" who also support him):

"...they were the men and women who, in 1935 and 1936, had turned to Windrip & Co., not as a perfect, but as the most probable savior of the country from, on one hand, domination by Moscow and, on the other hand, the slack indolence, the lack of decent pride of half the American youth, whose world (these idealists asserted) was composed of shiftless distaste for work and refusal to learn anything thoroughly, of blatting dance music on the radio, maniac automobiles, slobbering sexuality, the humor and art of the comic strip - of a slave psychology which was making America a land for sterner men to loot." (p. 422)

In this and other quotes it becomes apparent that Windrip was elected as "a strong man" and "savior" by angry, white, working-class people afraid of a foreign enemy, opposed to the perceived immorality and weakness of the younger generation & intellectual elites, and upset that people of different ethnicities are taking their jobs. This is certainly one portrayal of why Donald Trump was elected as well (whether it is an accurate one I leave up to your opinion...I despise getting into political debates).

A couple other potential parallels to Trump are Windrip's inflammatory speeches about Mexico and the mutual hatred between himself and the press. Most of the details of their background, political policies, and assumption of power are completely divergent.

Overall: a moderately interesting book that doesn't measure up to the classic dystopias and does bear some passing resemblance to our current political situation.

I read this book in the early sixties while still a teen. It affected me in a very strong way then and stayed with me as no other book has. I think people it should be read now. Back then I didn't actually believe it could ever happen but now I'm not so sure.

As a novel, especially on with Lewis's talents, it falls short of being great. But since it was intended as a piece of biting satire, it doesn't have to be great.

I decided to read it because of the present administration. I've known for years the topic of the book but just didn't make room for it in my reading schedule. It is haunting, but not so much for the current administration.

It is still possible for parts of the events of the novel to happen in this country. In a republic such as ours, we get the government that the most afraid deserve. If enough people get afraid enough, we could have a form of dictatorial leadership sprout here.

Still, what I found most eerie was his description of the oppression and how the oppression was turned into a machine. This book was published in 1935, so it was written during the time that Hitler was making his initial changes to Germany. What Lewis wrote was amazingly close to what happened there. This means that Lewis had a preternatural grasp of the human mob mentality and that he could apply it to Germany with the scant material available at the time. In that respect, the novel often made me nauseous.

The novel is funny, wry, frightening, and more human than I expected. I also find it very important that the novel ends in the way it does--for those who would rather not know in advance, I will refrain from saying how. I would recommend it to just about anyone.

Shipping was fast and the book was as advertised. Happy shopper here.

Being a paperback, the print was not as large as I'd hoped, but it was what you should expect.

This book lays out step by step how what can't happen can happen. Interestingly, we see parallels today. This should be required reading not only for students, but for anyone who votes.

As other reviews here have stated, this is not a subtle book. Anyone familiar with Lewis's other works will have no problem recognizing him here: he is heavy-handed and obvious, his writing is ham-fisted and clunkey.

But the book works, for the same reasons his more well known books works. Lewis has a fantastic ear for language and tone. His satire is always spot-on. Sure, his characters are exaggerated to the point of being caricatures, but the kernal of truth is always there amid the hyperbole.

It's not Babbit or Main Street, but a good read for Lewis fans.

A fascinating look into the political climate of the 1930's. In some ways, Lewis missed the boat (genocide was too much even for him to contemplate), in others he gored oxes that a Y2K reader would find difficult to swallow (his most despicable villians have this apparently nasty habit of preferring same sex partners in group sex games). At times it is a chore to read (particularly at the start) as he spends more time in political commentary than in plot development, but the insight into the 1930's mind more than makes up for it. The particular targets of Lewis' contempt are just about everybody. Fascists, Communists, Liberals, Conservatives, Homosexuals, Jews, Blacks, Capitalists, Religious leaders and constitutional democracy all receive the point of his spear. But, probably the true value of this work, Lewis does identify as the one true villian as those in the middle, the people who take no extreme position, because it is their unwillingness to take action that allows the extreme elements to take over and make the evil happen. Overall, it's a great wake up call to anyone who thinks it can't happen here, and who feels someone else should take the risks. The reader must ignore the prejudices (particularly as to homosexuals and persons with religious beliefs) to get to the core message, and for some this may be more than they can do. Three stars because it is such a chore to read, I imagine most readers give up after about 100 pages as too much dreck to get to the story, but it's worth finishing.

It amazes me that this semi-artless book was written by a Nobel Prize winner. The dialogue is blah, the characters too many, and the plot has no flare at all! The language is dated and stiff. It was agonizingly boring and I found my self skimming and skipping after the first third of the book.

The author's point is well-taken, however. It can happen here: we can collapse into fascism or communism if we aren't careful . And we haven't been careful! We have a clear and present danger in the Whitehouse.

It is my understanding that much better novels have been written in this theme; but I confess to not having read them. If you are concerned about the situation we are in, I recommend Naomi Klein's "No Is Not Enough" and "On Tyranny" by Professor Timothy Snyder - both works of nonfiction.

Sinclair Lewis is a genius in understanding the American public and the American mind. Yes, he is cynical and somewhat over the top, yet his poignant view about how politicians can manipulate non-thinking people and make them believe that they are part of the "club" (i.e. the ones in power are your intimate friends)and vote for them, even if it is against their daily life interests, still holds true today. One only needs to look at the last elections, where the same manipulations happened as Lewis described in his book in the 1930's. Even if the outcome this time around might be less drastic than those described in the novel, the parallels are amazing. One could read the book and think it was written a few months ago. Astonishing! The language is also delicious, like slow melting chocolate, to relish.

The first reviewer, Charles Haberl, does an excellent job describing the content of this insightful book and rightly draws the similarities to our own times.

I only wish to add a few points:

First of all, Sinclair Lewis drew his inspiration for writing this book from his wife, Dorothy Thompson. Dorothy was a journalist born in New York and was listed along with Eleanor Roosevelt as one of the two most influential women in America by "Time" magazine in 1939. Dorothy was outspoken against the Hitler regime and became the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany, and folks, this was in 1934! Hitler hadn't even shown his hand yet! AND, interestingly enough, an astute Dorothy Thompson wrote an article after WWII "cautioning American Jews about Zionism as it would lead to dual loyalty". Today, we see this dual loyalty in the Neo-cons who have sold their American soul to their militant worshipping satan...

The title of the book, "It Can't Happen Here", about "it happening here" is an obvious political knock on those who actually think this can't happen in the USA. Under Dorothy Thomnpson's influence, Sinclair Lewis was shown how fragile democracy is and how easity it can be subverted as detailed in Charles Haberl's review above. This book is also mentioned in the book, Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitarian Enemy, 1920s-1950s as being part of the culture in the American dictatorship milieu (see my reveiew of that relevant work).

The other thing I found very interesting about "It Can't Happen Here" is the mention by Sinclair Lewis of "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". Perhaps this is the pamphlet that served as Lewis's blueprint for the tactics used by his dictatorship regime.

And finally, I'd like to point out one final, but most pertinent contemporary parallel of Lewis's dictatorship: "...in a couple of years now, ON THE GROUND OF PROTECTING US, the Buzz Windrip dictatorship will be regimenting everything, from where we may pray to what detective stories we may read".

Why is it that so few people can see through this TERROR, TERROR, TERROR, mantra of our current administration?

This book is an amazing timeless look at how easily a fascist takeover can happen. How quick it can happen and how important it is to maintain everyone's right in your country. How important it is to really stand up for your values and the rights of others, NOW not later when it is convenient or when you have time to have an opinion. An important read for anyone who is interested in learning a bit about themselves. Would you really stand up or just follow along with someone more popular?

First of all, you have to have patience while reading this book. It is written very much in the style of its time - it is very literary. It's not a book that you can rush through; it takes time to get through it. But as the story unfolds, I guarantee you will see some very disturbing things that are eerily familiar to our time. There are so many parallels in this book with what we observed in the last presidential administration: military tribunals, attacking people who speak out against the government, people spying on each other, warrantless wiretaps, takeover of the media by propagandists. This book, like "1984", should serve as a warning to all Americans that a fascist dictatorship CAN happen here - it nearly did in 2000 and 2004 - and that it behooves all of us to safeguard our democracy because it can so easily and quickly be taken away. All it took in "It Can't Happen Here" was ignorance, laziness, and gullibility on the part of voters to put a fascist dictator in office.

Read this book. It could save our country.

" Sinclair Lewis, the first American to receive the Nobel Prize For Literature, wrote this satirical political novel in 1935, a time when the United States and Western Europe had been in a depression for six years. In this novel, Sinclair Lewis asks the question - what if some ambitious politician would use the 1936 presidential election to make himself dictator by promising quick, easy solutions to the depression - just as Hitler had done in Germany in 1933."

As frightening and politically current today as it was then...

A powerful novel of speculative fiction showing how fascism could "come to America wrapped in the flag." This book led me to read about Huey Long in the 1930s and realize how the election of 1940 could have taken this country onto a frightening timeline.

Is it really possible that this cautionary tale about fascism coming to the United States (in all-American garb) is out of print in 2003? With George W. Bush in the White House and "pre-emptive" war seemingly only hours away?
I don't remember this book being in the same league with "1984" and "Brave New World," but it does fill in important gaps in the cautionary picture. A marketing manager at a major publisher would NOT need to be a whiz in order to make this a minor bestseller.

I read this book in high school and again last week. And after reading it over Thanksgiving break, I became more thankful for our admittedly imperfect democracy.

All too many people (including other reviewers of this book) describe any disturbing or annoying political developments as "fascism": liberals attacking the economic ineptitude and warmongering of the Bush Administration, conservatives attacking the "nanny state."

But Lewis shows that real fascism isn't democracy led by crazy idiots. Real fascism is dictatorship led by thugs.

In Lewis's fascist state, government critics (or even people whose property the local politicos covet) are sent to concentration camps, where they are routinely killed and tortured. The borders are guarded so Americans cannot easily escape (though a few manage to do so anyhow). There is no opposition media, no chance to escape to Canada. By contrast, our America, despite wars and economic problems, is still more or less a free country. And as long as people can (erroneously) call their politicians fascists without being flogged with steel rods, it will continue to be one.

"It Can't Happen Here" is an interesting yet totally overcooked fable about America in the 1930s when it gets overtaken by an ultra nationalistic dictator. Clearly Sinclair Lewis was making a statement about the times, and no doubt he was chastized for being so brazen and, perhaps, seemingly "un-American". So he deserves kudos for bravery. Unfortunately much of the book is unreadable, being nothing more than hysterical rants.

However one cannot help but wonder whether such anarchy come to America? Of course the answer is 'yes'. So on that note the book should be read. Or better still, I hope someone updates it, smoothes it out, and makes a film adaptation.

Bottom line: an important socio-political statement of 1930s America which is still valid in the 21st century. Too bad it's not well-written.

Anyone who gives this book one star must support the current dictator-in-charge. This book, written before World War Two, is extremely accurate and explains exactly how people can take over our democracy.

Surprisingly, Sinclair Lewis' darkly humorous tale of a fascist takeover in the US, "It Can't Happen Here," is not merely out-of-print, but also quite hard to find. As dated as it is (1935), its themes will be quite familiar to Americans today. It starts with the highly contested election of an oafish yet strangely charismatic president, who talks like a "reformer" but is really in the pocket of big business, who claims to be a home-spun "humanist," while appealing to religious extremists, and who speaks of "liberating" women and minorities, as he gradually strips them of all their rights. One character, when describing him, says, "I can't tell if he's a crook or a religious fanatic."
After he becomes elected, he puts the media - at that time, radio and newspapers - under the supervision of the military and slowly begins buying up or closing down media outlets. William Randolph Hearst, the Rupert Murdoch of his times, directs his newspapers to heap unqualified praise upon the president and his policies, and gradually comes to develop a special relationship with the government. The president, taking advantage of an economic crisis, strong-arms Congress into signing blank checks over to the military and passing stringent and possibly unconstitutional laws, e.g. punishing universities when they don't permit military recruiting or are not vociferous enough in their approval of his policies. Eventually, he takes advantage of the crisis to convene military tribunals for civilians, and denounce all of his detractors as unpatriotic and possibly treasonous.
I'll stop here, as I don't want to ruin the story -- I can imagine that you can see where all this is going.

It Can’t Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis, author; Grover Gardner, narrator
The time is 1936. The Depression is a nightmare memory which has changed the mood of the country. There is political unrest, a charged atmosphere of distrust for government officials, anger at rich corporate giants, and a general somber malaise is hanging over America. Political candidates represent the people’s fears, and one in particular appeals to their emotions by stressing the idea of helping “the forgotten man”. Although there are those that find his diatribes unbecoming, because of his racist and anti-Semitic remarks, there are more who seem to be glomming on to his message of hope and equal, economic opportunity for those who feel left behind.
Socialism, Fascism, Communism and Capitalism are on the radar of all voters. Which ideology will be chosen in this country overrun by opinion and nationalism, where certain groups of people are being vilified and ostracized and others praised as more worthy? Each major party accuses the other of wrongdoing, of being fascists.
In the novel, Hitler is becoming more popular in Europe and in America where FDR is facing a myriad of other Presidential pretenders. When the Socialist Brezelius Windrip defeats him and is elected President, there is disbelief. Soon, all Hell breaks loose as he begins to change the face of the country. Like Bernie Sanders, he wants to give everyone $5000 a year as a minimum, standard wage. He makes promises to promote health care and provide free education. He offers pipe dreams that cannot be fulfilled, and when he is swept into office, with a country divided for and against him, he merely eliminates his detractors using his volunteer band of supporters called Minute Men. He immediately arms and begins to pay them. They eagerly remove those who defy him, by any means they choose. Congress and the Supreme Court Justices are arrested. The M.M.’s, as they are called, are thugs who indiscriminately and gleefully used their power to brutalize and abuse those who formerly had power over them.
Windrip used old venerable institutions of education as prisons and created concentration camps. By eliminating those that would not acquiesce to his demands, by putting them into work camps or murdering them after using barbaric methods of torture to get them to confess to crimes or rethink their positions, he gained more and more power. Rebellion was almost impossible as it was easy to suppress. When some well known and respected citizens were arrested and killed for no apparent reason, few protested lest it happen to them too. Racist and anti-Semitic laws were passed. If one disobeyed, arbitrary punishment and horrific methods of torture were used. Windrip’s minion’s brutality rivaled Hitler’s.
As people came to their senses, realizing that no one was safe from the whims or wrath of these ill equipped leaders and military men, some attempted to rebel. Journalists began to realize that they might have helped this man get into office and they tried to remedy the situation with editorials. They were quickly silenced, arrested and/or eliminated. No opposition was tolerated. An underground effort formed to help victims of the brutality escape from the country, but the borders were well guarded. Some got to Canada, which was predictive of a time decades later when resisters of the Viet Nam War crossed the border.
Soon, there was unrest at the highest levels of government. After a little over two years, Windrip was betrayed and overthrown by his friend and confidante, Secretary of State Lee Sarason. A month later, Sarason was murdered by the new Secretary of State, Dewey Haik who took over and consolidated power even further and was even more ruthless.
What kind of a country would the United States become after all was said and done? Which group would emerge victorious? Who were the culprits causing so much dissidence in the country and suspicion of the government? Was it the rich, the corporations or the ignorant who were hungry for power and equality even though they actually were not prepared to handle the authority given without abusing it? Sinclair Lewis never really provides an answer. The book condemns Fascism and Communism but really does not offer a better alternative when it ends, leaving the resolution of the rebellion unfinished.
The book was prescient since WWII and its atrocities were not in full swing when it was published. Still, there must have been more of an awareness of Hitler’s vicious policies than I had believed, because many forms of cruelty and maliciousness used by Hitler were arbitrarily practiced in the concentration camps of Lewis’ imagination.
The book was excellent, but the reviews seem contrived in order to promote the particular political point of view of the reviewer. Just like in the book, our own cast of characters is blown this way and that by the different politicians and their speeches. Our most powerful and famous personages use their bully pulpit to make wild accusations, sometimes without any basis in reality, just because they can’t deal with, or simply refuse to accept the facts.
Could someone, like Windrip slowly commandeer power by eliminating individual choice, speech and freedom? The media today has taken to pointing fingers at Trump to make him appear frightening. If they continue to sow dissent and discontent, perhaps there could be someone like that, but it isn’t Trump. His agenda is in no way like that of Windrip’s. Still, it is horrifying to contemplate how easily and quickly a country could be corrupted by a leader who harbored hateful, despotic plans and who had the support of a ready military organization behind him/her.
Occasionally, it felt like there was a bit too much dialogue in the audio version, so I believe that, the book should be read in print in order to get the most out of it.

This novel was written decades ago - we relive, however, the uncertainty and fear of those days.
In times of eroding civil liberties and increasingly secretive American governmental power over and intrusion into the lives of all citizens, this book is a MUST READ for every citizen.

This book is difficult to get into. The beginning was boring to me and I gave up at page 14. However, I revisited the novel and once I got past the first 14 pages, I couldn't put it down. Great story! After it was over, I was wanting more!

I read this book many years ago, but re-read it to refresh my memory. It's a long book and I got some of the
thinly described fictitious characters mixed up.
However, it's worth reading again today, in light of the presidency of of Donald Trump.

I can't recommend this, unless you are someone interested in the 'future' type of books prevalent in the time period (see 'WE' by Zemyatin, for instance). In this case, a Fascist dictatorship is legally elected and chaos ensues. The characters are caricatures (by design) and the heroes likewise -- it ends up being an allegory like "Vanity Fair" or similar.

That said, the writing is pretty good, and some of the ideas are interesting. Unfortunately, the Lewis' screed becomes like John Galt's speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged -- boring, repetitive and unrealistic.

This is a very well-done analysis of how a facist regime would take over a democracy. Don't give him too much credit though. He seems to have directly based all of his ideas for the takeover of America on the subversion of the Weimar Republic. The book as literature is okay, but it is NOT Shakespeare. I would still highly recommend reading this, if for no other reason, for the sake of having said you read it.

The reviewers who drew a parallel to Modern America clearly never read any material about facism. There are many books that detail the horrors of a totalitarian regime. I would recommend reading "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and "The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956" both by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Another good bet would be "The Joke" by Milan Kundera.

Some years ago I went on a Sinclair Lewis kick. It has been reputed to be his worst work, and I agree wholeheartedly. It seemed to me that he was phoning this in and didn't much care if it left his desk. It was a largely forgotten work. Now, all of you Left Wing lemmings think this is some wonderous prophetic work, as though it predicted Trump - your personal Bogey Man. When I read it I saw far more of your Left Wing ideology in it. You people don't even know what Fascism is/was. In your little minds a Fascist is anyone who doesn't agree with your foolish ideology. You wouldn't know a Fascist if one showed up on your doorstep with a tiny mustache and a bad haircut. In fact, I strongly recommend that you all read Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. You'll learn the history of your Progressive ideology and how it defined Hitler's policies of eugenics.

Not a great novel, but a frighteningly accurate rendition of what people led by fascists will rationalize and do. Some sections so closely resemble what the megalomaniacal and violently narcissistic Trump and his band of sycophants are doing as to be very depressing.

The concept is interesting but the writing is bloated and self-absorded, resulting in a boring, wordy novel. I could not finish it. This is considered an American classic? Just another example of the lack of culture in American society.

These 2 books were purchased for my son in Texas.He is completely happy with the purchases,has added them to his library collection of old books.I'm thankful that you have this type of purchase available. I would not be able to purchase them locally,and plan on purchasing more books for Christmas,birthdays ,etc.

While the time isn't clear -- I'd guess shortly after WWII -- it is mandatory reading for anyone who worries about the loss of individual liberties in the US, as well as movement to a "security state", written long before current concerns.