Play Book Tag discussion

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis - 4* - My Review

Published in 1935, this book was written at a time when Hitler and Mussolini were pursuing their Fascist agendas in Europe, and the US was in the throes of the Great Depression. The prose style is old-fashioned, as is some of the terminology, but it is a book that issues an important warning about the ways a demagogue could get elected in the United States, and the resulting devastating consequences. It also forewarns of the rise of McCarthyism. Lots of the methods used by candidate Berzelius (Buzz) Windrip are quintessential tactics of demagogues, such as fear-mongering, undermining the media, racial and ethnic scapegoating, promising what people want to hear regardless of feasibility or long-term impact, using religion as a shield, outright lying, and the list goes on. The book points out the complacency of many Americans, and how democracy is taken for granted, a theme which is still relevant today.