A disturbing book that recognizes tendencies which are still embedded in the American psyche. Totalitarianism doesn't come from the right or left--it is a response to fear. Politicians, journalists, and individuals who exaggerate risks and encourage fear and divisiveness are the true enemy of democracy.

Not exactly a literary masterpiece, but a good read nevertheless. The political and social message outweighs the prose. ( )

Gripping and, in places, quite graphically horrible alternate history where a populist demagogue becomes President in 1936 and turns the USA into a fascist state with concentration camps. I say history, but it was written in 1935 and must have made quite an impression at the time. In this alternate reality, Berzelius Windrip is selected as Democratic candidate over sitting President FDR and goes on to defeat the comparatively liberal Republican candidate. The repression starts quickly as soon as he is inaugurated and the central character Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor, is forced into ever greater compromises and is eventually sent to a concentration camp. Very chilling and one interesting touch is the naïve enthusiasm of some Europeans for the new regime, echoing the real life naivety of some visiting Stalin's Soviet Union who saw only what they were allowed to or wanted to see. The ending is a little ambiguous - the regime looks about to collapse, but Doremus, now freed and disguised as a member of the Underground, has the authorities on his tail once again. ( )

Kind of a sleeper. I expected 1984 meets Animal Farm ( )

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. (Charles Häberl, amazon.com)

His 1935 novel that imagines what it would take to establish a Fascist dictatorship in the USA. It’s horrifying and thought-provoking, and should be required reading in any political science class. It’s also admittedly a bit hard to swallow, since it’s hard to imagine that Americans would stand for the violence dealt out by the paramilitary Minute Men (Lewis’ American equivalent of the Brown Shirts) against people who criticize the President. On the other hand, we were more violent and corrupt and racist then. We volunteered for wars back in those days. And mass media was a lot easier to control in 1935.

So could it happen here? Probably not the way Lewis describes it. A Hitler/Mussolini/Franco/Stalin-style dictatorship with single state political parties, state media control, concentration camps and corrupt thugs using police power to settle scores and arrest anyone who dares criticize Glorious Leader is unlikely, if for no other reason that, unlike people in 1935, we have the aftermath of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Stalin as warning posts. On the other hand, does it have to look like Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia to qualify as Fascism, or a dictatorship? ( )