Sinclair Lewis, perhaps best known for his novels Babbit, Main Street, Elmer Gantry, and Aerosmith published It Can't Happen Here in 1935. This is a chilling novel that seems uncannily similar to our current political situation. The story line is that FDR lost his bid for re-election in 1936 to a party that gave rise to the Corpo's, a parallel movement to Communism in the Soviet Union, Nazism in Germany, and Fascism in Italy.

President Berzelius Windrip, supported by the Evangelical movement and enforced by his private Minute Man army (the MM's,) announced on his inauguration day that his 15-Point Plan will take effect immediately. Congress convened and promptly rejected the new President's ambitions. The MM's marched and took those in Congress who voted against Buzz into "protective custody."

It does not take long for Buzz to declare himself ruler (dictator) with the expressed goals of ridding America of welfare cheats, sex, crime, and the liberal press.

The story line develops around a liberal newspaper man who is beaten and jailed for his unwillingness to join the movement.

Here is a quick quote from the book: "More and more, as I think about history, I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and of silencing them forever."

I hope that it really cannot happen here!

--Wayne Wilson