How "It Can't Happen Here" Happens Here: Part 1
- Charlie Biscotto
- Feb 5, 2017
- 5 min read
It's important to keep perspective. So far, despite Donald Trump's best efforts, the rule of law seems to be holding. A small coterie in the Cabinet is poised to stand up to white supremacist (or at the very least white supremacist-enabling) Steve Bannon, and indeed already has. If one of James Mattis, Rex Tillerson, or John Kelly resigns from the Trump administration, that should be a big red flag. Historically, descents into fascism happen quickly in the aftermath of "shock events", so it's important to be vigilant. To that end, I'll be reading and reviewing some works from literature that use historical precedent and the current events of the writers to examine causes, catalysts, and consequences of fascist rule. Today, I'll be starting with Sinclair Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here. and focusing on how the fascist candidate, the wonderfully named Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, first gains steam.
It Can't Happen Here was published in 1935 and the action of the novel starts in the same year with the run-up to the 1936 election. The protagonist of the novel is Doremus Jessup, the editor of a small newspaper in Fort Beulah, Vermont, and the events of the novel focus primarily on Jessup, his friends, and his family, with occasional glimpses at the inner-workings of the Windrip administration. The following passage is set during a late-night conversation about Windrip's prospects over drinks among the local who's who of Fort Beulah, hosted in the private barroom of local quarry owner Francis Tasbrough.
"Yes!" said Emil Staubmeyer. "Didn't Hitler save Germany from the Red Plague of Marxism? I got cousins there. I know!"
"Hm," said Doremus, as often Doremus did say it. "Cure the evils of Democracy by the evils of Fascism! Funny therapeutics. I've heard of their curing syphillis by giving the patient malaria, but I've never heard of their curing malaria by giving the patient syphillis!"
"Think that's nice language to use in the presence of the Reverend Falck?" raged Tasbrough.
Mr. Falck piped up, "I think it's quite nice language, and an interesting suggestion, Brother Jessup!"
"Besides," said Tasbrough, "this chewing the rag is all nonsense, anyway. As Crowley says, might be a good thing to have a strong man in the saddle, but - it just can't happen here in America."
And it seemed to Doremus that the softly moving lips of the Reverend Mr. Falck were framing, "The hell it can't!"
The obvious parallel to our current situation is the very title of the novel. "It can't happen here" was the standard refrain about Donald Trump's possible election. People (namely the so-called President of the United States) are still hitting the media and pollsters over the fact that they got that one wrong. I have two small qualms with that narrative that I'll touch on as quickly as possible. First, despite a lot of criticism, Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight had stressed the uncertainty of polls in this election compared to the past. People who looked at the numbers coldly and rationally knew that this exact scenario was a possibility, and it played out exactly like they stated, with national polls being fairly accurate (Hillary Clinton won big) and state polls having more variation (Hillary won deep blue states by more than expected, and white working-class voters in the Rust Belt voted more Trump than expected). The polls were about as accurate as past years, but the particulars of this election produced an unlikely result. Second, where the media erred was in believing that the late undecideds would not split towards someone running an ethno-nationalist campaign. They were too optimistic about Americans rejecting an explicitly racist and misogynistic candidate, and they were wrong. (A prominent base of support for Windrip in It Can't Happen Here is the League of Forgotten Men, another parallel hard to ignore in Trump's post-election rhetoric.)
The more interesting insight from this is the almost-unspoken longing for a strongman. In 2017, a person justifying their support of fascism by saying "At least Hitler stopped the Commies" is ridiculous, but when the novel was published, the full horrors of the Nazi regime hadn't made themselves known. While discrimination against Jewish people happened even before Hitler's ascent to power, the original concentration camps were mainly intended for political opponents, the Kristallnacht pogroms didn't happen until 1938, and the plan for full-on extermination of Jews wasn't implemented until 1941. What these fictional Americans (and some actual Americans) admired, at least out loud, was the "strength" and efficiency of the Nazi Reich. (Unless you were Henry Ford, in which case it was definitely the anti-Semitism.)
And Donald Trump played on a similar argument. He stated that Vladimir Putin, a man heavily suspected of ordering numerous assassinations and accused of ethnic cleansing of Turkmen in Syria, is a "leader far more than [Barack Obama]." Specifically, Trump praised his "great control over his country" and his sky-high approval ratings. Trump's shout-outs to Putin turned Republican orthodoxy on its head, as Putin's approval ratings among American Republicans went from 10% in July 2014 to 24% this past September and then 37% in December, growing even as evidence of Russian attempts to influence our elections became harder to deny.
A full year ago, studies were already showing that a highly predictive trait among Trump supporters was a penchant for authoritarianism. Criticism of this conclusion shows both that his authoritarian supporters were highly populist and that authoritarian sentiment is extremely prevalent across the Republican base. Trump's Republican convention focused on fear despite facts, and sought in that sense to justify his strongman tendencies. Even Breitbart would run an opinion piece on how Trump was the "strong man" America needed, separating the two words in an attempt, I suppose, both to emphasize the gender of Trump's opponent and to inoculate it from the exact criticism facts are now rendering. And if you think that's a leftist interpretation, Republican strategist Alex Castellanos criticized Trump as "the strongman we don't need."
In office, Trump has not veered from this track. He's borrowed from the standard playbook of authoritarian tactics, most prominently in manipulation and degradation of the media, as Brian Klaas noted for Vice:
First, in order to roll back democratic checks, despots must blur the lines between truth and falsehood. This makes it difficult to ascertain who to trust in times of crisis. Throughout history, this graying of truth often starts on trivial matters, particularly on issues that surround the cult of personality associated with the leader. Trump did not disappoint; his administration's first press event as president was an aggressive and angry assertion of falsehoods related to his inaugural crowd size. Like many despots, Trump is unable to accept popular narratives that challenges his standing as the man of the people.
He's doubled down on his support for Putin, defending him against (of all people) Bill O'Reilly and asking, "Well, you think our country is so innocent?" Trump's implication is that American leaders have murdered rival politicians or unfavorable journalists, which either means he knows something we don't or that he needs to justify something that will happen in the future. If it's the former, he should have been praying for our national forgiveness rather than the ratings for Celebrity Apprentice last week. If it's the latter, well... I hope he hasn't found this website yet.
This same admiration for strongmen and "strong men" is at the heart of Trump's and Mike Huckabee's shameful mocking of Charles Schumer's tears. They long for a "strong man in the saddle," someone who's only outward emotions are fear and anger. Chuck Schumer knows better than most the dangers of those men running a country, with his great-grandmother and seven of her children murdered in the Holocaust.
In the fictional world of It Can't Happen Here, the citizens of Fort Beulah had little idea what the consequences of fascism would be. Their desire for a "strong man" blinded them to the consequences of a strongman. In 2016, the American people (or rather, the Electoral College) fell prey to the same impulses, but vigilance and active resistance can help stop us from suffering the same consequences.
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