This book’s ironic title indicates the “average American’s” complacency towards political concerns – a theme as relevant today as it was during the Great Depression. This book, written at the height of the Depression in 1935, imagines what would happen if a populist/fascist won the presidential election of 1936. Fascism was already taking root in Italy and Germany, and it was on the rise in America (primarily through Senator Huey Long, as the afterword explains). In financial distress, the American masses could easily be fooled into granting a national income that did not require work and into curbing freedoms like that of the press and that of speech in favor of promised prosperity. To those who glibly respond to this situation, “But it can’t happen here,” Lewis responds in this novel: “Oh yes, it can!”
In this book, the “Minute Men” (or simply “M.M.”) take on the role of enforcers of a dictatorial president. The new president quickly dissolves Congress and imposes authoritarian rule. Freedoms are curbed. The protagonist – a journalist named Doremus Jessup – realizes his complicity in this outcome. His previous complacency helped great American democracy to decay.
Obvious modern parallels presciently abound, and they can indict both sides of the current political divide. Although Lewis’ targets in this book were on the populist right, he was no wild leftist in his private life outside of this book. Discussions with journalists expelled from European fascist countries inspired this unnervingly realistic tale. His overarching point is not an uncritical embrace of liberalism but rather is a reawakening of the populous to “liberal” democratic principles.
Fortunately, the election of 1936 swayed FDR’s way, and the battles of World War II alerted the American public to the virtues of democracy. Sadly, internment camps did once dwell upon American soil, though not to the depraved degree exhibited in this novel. Ethnic, ideological, and economic rivalries, depicted here as prevalent in Lewis’ day, still can upend social stability. People still look towards government strongmen for economic security. Yes, it still can happen here.
These frighteningly present-day themes make this book a modern classic. They originally made this book Lewis’ best work of the second half of his career. This tale entertained and enlightened readers in the 1930s and can do the same to readers today. I could easily imagine this work being read today by a class in government in public high schools. Interestingly, Lewis concludes this work not by a restoration of democracy but by the liberty-filled triumph of the individual, despite bad government. Perhaps more eyes and ears today should absorb this message.
It Can’t Happen Here
By Sinclair Lewis
Copyright (c) 1935, 1963
Signet Classics
ISBN13 9780451465641
Page Count: 397
Genre: Fiction, American Politics
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