"It can't happen here."

So says Doremus Jessup, liberal editor of a small-town Vermont newspaper, and his friends at the beginning of Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel of the same title. What can’t happen in the United States is fascism and tyranny along the lines of Hitler, Mussolini or Stalin – even in a time of great economic difficulty. But…

In 1936, ‘Buzz’ Windrip, a populist senator from the US Midwest gets elected president of the United States on a radical ticket – tight control over capitalism, funds to help all citizens (almost a Basic Income Grant), national reconstruction, etc. Within a few months the US Congress has been silenced, the authority of the Supreme Court hobbled.

Education is reduced to skills training; teaching creationism is encouraged in schools. The land is re-divided into administrative regions under political appointees of Windrup. Dissent is crushed by Windrip’s personal ‘guard’, the Minute Men. The press is censored. Criticism is denounced as ‘unpatriotic’. Concentration camps for dissidents and ‘suspect’ persons (notably Jews and Blacks) are set up. And there is no sign of the pay-outs promised the masses in the election campaign. Faced with growing frustration, the regime starts constructing a plan for a war with Mexico…

Of course, history tells us that in 1936, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in fact elected for a second term as president. Fascism in the USA did not emerge in the 1930s – although reading Lewis’ novel today we may feel a little sense of déjà vu. Where have we heard recently of manipulation of the courts (packing them with loyalists), renewed sympathy for creationism, ‘homeland security’, racial profiling of ‘terrorist suspects’, indeed camps for long term detainees on (admittedly off-mainland) US soil? Or indeed of seeing criticism of a regime’s policy as treasonous?

The novel ends with the United States in even deeper crisis. The new ruling elite, greedily fighting over the spoils, start turning against each other. Leaders overthrow former friends; some are exiled, some are shot. As the government starts a war to distract the masses, increasing sections of the nation rebel. Some members of the former elite jump the apparently sinking ship of state and join the rebellion, one that good men like Doremus Jessup have been part of since the beginning.

Although the novel ends at this point Lewis seems to suggest that in the end democracy and common decency will triumph. The question he does not answer is when.

Sometimes reading a novel like It Can’t Happen Here helps us gain perspective. It reminds us of the deceptiveness of populist leaders and politics without a basis in reason. We may even see a few parallels with recent Republican presidencies in the United States or within quite a few neighbouring countries in Africa.

Of course …It can’t happen here.