It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

 (Book Review)
Recently Phil said on his blog: “Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here is a fantastic book, frighteningly relevant to Bush II-era life. I am so pissed I wasn't forced to read it in high school. It's a book every American should be forced to read.”

Truth be told, this book has been on my reading list ever since I read “The Iron Heel” by Jack London. But I got delayed; first because it was hard to find this book in Japan, and then second because once I got back to America I kept getting distracted by other books.

But when I noticed Phil had beaten me to this book, I decided to finally get off my ass and order it through inter-library loan.

“It Can’t Happen Here” is a fictional description of a Fascist take over in the United States. Written in the 1930s, the book stands partly as a time piece of an era when many people were concerned about the spread of Fascism and Communism, in the same vein as “1984" or “The Fountainhead”. Surprisingly, many real politicians, journalists, and writers become characters in Sinclair Lewis’s book. I don’t know what the finer points of the libel law are, but I’m surprised he got away with it.

How much of this book is still relevant today is a matter of debate. Like any book which projects a possible future, parts of “It Can’t Happen Here” end up looking naive from today’s standards, other parts are eerily accurate. Therefore if one picks and chooses which parts of Lewis to emphasize, one can make him look a lot more prognostic than he really was.

For instance, as Phil points out, a lot of this could be applied to the Bush administration. Unlike the European fascists, the fictional fascist American president, Buzz Windrip, avoids formal ceremonies, and instead uses a down home folksy charm. He uses the appeal of religious fundamentalism and old-time values as a bait-and-switch to get the American people to support his authoritarian tactics. The power behind the President, Lee Sarason, is a combination of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. And the president manufactures a war with Mexico complete with faked intelligence reports.

At the same time, it’s interesting to see how much of this is the opposite of George Bush. In contrast to Bush’s approach of divide and conquer, or appealing directly to his base, President Windrip tries to co-opt the left by running as a democrat on a populist platform. Very similar perhaps to the historical rise of populist fascists in Germany and especially Italy. In fact real life leftist writers like Upton Sinclair are portrayed in this book as having prominent posts in Windrip’s government.

Lewis appears to be operating from the Marxist perspective that Fascism is an alliance between the bourgeoisie and the lumpen proletariat against the middle class and the proletariat. In Windrip's regime, most of the soldiers come from the criminal class. Although the Bush regime is certainly guilty of criminal behavior, I have yet to see them actively recruiting from the Lumpen Proletariat.

Also the transition to a fascist state begins very quickly after Windrip is elected. Within a few months after the Presidential election, America is in a state of fascism. Maybe in the 1930s this looked more realistic than it does now, but with apologies to Sinclair Lewis, I’d say that this rapid transition to Fascism can’t happen here. Not the way he portrays it at least. What I think is more likely would be the gradual elimination of liberties over a period of years. For instance one day we’d find out that the federal government was taping phones without a warrant. Then all the government talking heads would be all over the news explaining that this was nothing to worry about, that it was essential for fighting terrorism, and shame on the media for scaring the American public. And after this was safely forgotten, another liberty would mysteriously vanish. This is the path I’m worried about. Not a rapid 6 month conversion into a Fascist state.

Like Orwell in “1984", Lewis spends a lot of time focusing on graphic descriptions of beatings and torture. And like “1984", this made me a little bit uncomfortable. I feel that if you’re writing about something that actually happened, like the holocaust, it’s okay to give all the gory details because people need to know how awful it was. But lingering on a torture scene in a fictional book strikes me as a bit sadistic.

However I think both Lewis and Orwell would argue that the entire point of their books is that Fascist and authoritarian regimes are based on violence, torture and brutality. By the same token, I think they would say the surest sign a society is slipping into fascism is a willingness to accept torture as an acceptable method of governing. As one of Orwell’s characters says in “1984": “If you want a picture of the future, picture a boot stomping down on a human face. Forever.”

It is this part of the book which I think is most applicable to what is going on today, when the Vice President of the United States is actively lobbying on capital hill for torture. I’m sure if Lewis or Orwell were alive today, they would see this as a sign that their worst fears are coming true. And I think their books remind us that when we allow torture, we give up our humanity.

Despite the depressing subject material of Lewis’s book, his wit does shine through at different points. I mentioned earlier in my review of Sinclair Lewis’s “Babbit” that I thought if he were alive today he might be writing for “The Simpsons”. Likewise parts of “It Can’t Happen Here” are thick with the same kind of ironic satire.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
Rosie the Riveter is a cultural icon of the United States, representing the six million women who worked in the manufacturing plants which produced munitions and material during World War II while the men (who traditionally performed this work) were off fighting the war. This "character" is now considered a feminist icon in the US, and a herald of women's economic power to come. On Halloween, Bear and I saw someone dressed as "Rosie the Riveter". Bear subsequently gave me a rough time for not knowing who she was, so I'm doing this link as my penance.

Link of the Day
At the risk of turning this blog too narrowly into my own interest, here is another one for the history buffs. This is footage of the fighting between students and Police in Tokyo University in 1969.

It is difficult to over-emphasize the importance of Tokyo University. It is the top University in Japan, and the equivalent of every American Ivy League school rolled into one. (In terms of prestige that is. Not necessarily in terms of academic scholarship). Therefore it was a huge shock to see the violent battle with the Police. One Japanese writer said, "Even though no students were killed, it was the Japanese equivalent of Kent State."

Partly as a result of this incident the Japanese Diet passed a bill making it easier for riot police to enter college campuses. Near the end of this video, you can see some fighting in the Diet surrounding the passage of this bill.

It's not the first time fist fights have broken out in the Japanese Diet. I always thought Japanese politics were interesting, because in their everyday life the Japanese place such a high value on acting dignified and being polite. But their parliament has taken after the European style of show boating speeches and occasionally they will resort to fist fights when they know the camera is on.

There was another big fight when the Diet voted to send troops to Iraq in 2003. This was even more interesting because several Women MPs jumped into the fray as well. Unfortunately I can't find a video of that on the web. Maybe someone will post it someday. In the meantime if you're interested you can read this description of the incident from the British press.

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis: Book Review (Scripted)