It Can't Happen Here Book

Hey everyone, today I finished reading a book that I was really excited to read, "It Can't Happen Here." by Sinclair Lewis. It was written back in 1935, and is a somewhat-satirical novel about American culture, as well as government in general.

Published during the rise of fascism in Europe, the novel describes the rise of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a politician who defeats Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values. After his election, Windrip takes complete control of the government and imposes a totalitarian rule with the help of a ruthless paramilitary force, in the manner of Adolf Hitler and the SS. The novel's plot centers on journalist Doremus Jessup's opposition to the new regime and his subsequent struggle against it as part of a liberal rebellion.

I wanted to read this book because I am slowly becoming more and more interested in the necessary and fragile system that is government. There are so many things that can go wrong with these things. You need officials that are all unbiased, not greedy, serious business types, and also kind and caring souls that respect all everyone. It's a hard job to do, and it should be. It's running a country. I've always enjoyed the thought I heard once that we need to stop electing presidents and govt. officials like they're contestants in a beauty pageant. The thing to do is to find the person who wants the job the least, and hire them. They don't want the job, so they won't really care how they look when making hard decisions. That person will make the logical choice; not always the popular choice. That's who we need to run the country. At least, I like that thought of someone that can't be swayed by popular opinion. 

Anyway, enough of my political talk; let's move on to the political talk this book talks about. Lewis was alarmed by what was taking shape in the country. The New Deal had delivered a false sense of optimism to the Federal Reserve, if not to the millions queueing at the soup kitchens. The money supply was tightened in anticipation of a sustained rally, government spending was cut and taxes were raised. As a result, the US was pushed to the cusp of a double-dip depression, with manufacturing back to its 1934 level and unemployment up by 5%.

This created fertile ground for Father Charles Coughlin, Huey Long, William Randolph Hearst and other fanatics to spread the gospel of bigotry. It was no fleeting backlash: on the eve of the second world war, the German American Bund packed more than 20,000 militants into Madison Square Garden in New York for a pro-Hitler rally. To wild applause, their leader, Fritz Kuhn, derided the US President as Franklin D “Rosenfeld”.

Before I go any further, I am getting a lot of this information from The Guardian's article about how this book relates somewhat to the Trump election in 2016. A great website where I do a lot of research on a lot of different subjects. I'll leave a link to the article at the end of all this. Okay, cool... moving on.

I don't know how long this post will be, I just finished the book and I wanted to talk about it a little. Basically, Lewis’s hero, the New England journalist Doremus Jessup, attends a Windrip rally in Madison Square Garden. Jessup reports that Windrip’s rhetoric was irresistible to his thousands of downtrodden admirers. He later can’t remember a word Windrip said. But it doesn’t matter: if Windrip contradicts himself, backtracks on policy or simply spews out a torrent of lies, he tells them what they want to hear. Every American will be guaranteed a minimum income of $5,000 ($88,000 in today’s money), US-hating Mexico will be severely dealt with and Jewish bankers will be punished for landing the country in this mess. Sounds a little too familiar, don't you all think?

I won't spoil the ending, but Doremus Jessup goes back to his home in Vermont and writes an anti-Windrip article. He gets arrested and told to only write pro-Windrip articles. Jessup refuses, gets taken to a concentration camp, and is tortured. Will Jessup escape? Will he succumb to this fascist's evil doings? Read the book and find out for yourself!

But seriously, you should all read the book. It's a little dense, and can be very hard to read sometimes, but overall it is very interesting. Trust me on this one. Also, here's the link to that Guardian article. I'll see you all tomorrow.

Buh-bye.