Blog #4 It Can’t Happen Here

Sinclair Lewis’ novel, It Can’t Happen Here written in 1935 is the story of a fascist dictatorship setting up right here in the United States. In the novel Lewis describes people are upset and are in a situation where they want great change. In the story the protagonist, Doremus Jessup witnesses people tired of the old system not working and want change to come and they see it in Berzelius Windrip who appeals to working Americans that he is on their side. Jessup is fearful that Windrip will take the U.S. down the path of Germany and Italy by setting up a fascist regime, stripping away the freedoms of every American. This is what is referred to as what “can’t happen here,” but as the story tells it most certainly does as people are drawn into Windrip as he promises a new system that scapegoats people and promises $5,000 to each American. It is not long till we see that concentration camps are set up, the media is censored heavily, and everybody suffers. This book I feel has become popular in the past four years probably with Donald Trump’s election to the presidency. While reading the book there were parts where voters from Lewis’ novel made some of the same points that people who voted Trump made such as “he’s on the side of the plain people” (66) and to “make America a proud rich land again,” (136). Another reason that this book has become popular is how the media in the book has been heavily censored or altered to tell a different story from the real one and how that connects to “fake-news” that Trump talked about. This book I believe has become popular again because we see someone who has the capability to make Lewis’ story come true which has a lot of people on edge.