How Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here Warns Today’s America

In 1935, as fascism consolidated power across Europe, Sinclair Lewis published It Can’t Happen Here, a chilling novel about how a folksy, populist demagogue named Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip rises to the American presidency on promises to restore greatness, then systematically dismantles democracy. The title itself mocks American exceptionalism, the complacent belief that “it”, authoritarian tyranny, could never take root in the land of the free.

Nearly ninety years later, Lewis’s cautionary tale reads less like historical fiction and more like a field guide to contemporary American politics. As democratic norms strain under polarization, disinformation, and authoritarian impulses, the novel’s themes resonate with uncomfortable precision. Lewis understood something essential: fascism doesn’t arrive with jackboots and torches. It comes with flags, slogans, and the promise to make things great again.

The Seduction of the Strongman

Buzz Windrip doesn’t campaign as a tyrant. He campaigns as a savior. A charismatic senator who understands media spectacle, Windrip blends folksy charm with vague promises of economic prosperity. He rails against elites while being bankrolled by wealthy industrialists. He attacks the press as dishonest while using it masterfully to amplify his message. He promises to restore American greatness after years of humiliation and decline.

Lewis captured how authoritarian movements gain traction not through explicit calls for dictatorship but through emotional appeals to wounded pride and economic anxiety. Windrip’s followers don’t think they’re voting for fascism; they believe they are voting for jobs, security, and national restoration.

Today, strongman politics has gained mainstream acceptance, with politicians openly admiring authoritarian leaders abroad, suggesting they might not accept election results, and floating ideas about remaining in power beyond constitutional limits. What Lewis understood and what many Americans still struggle to accept is that authoritarianism comes to power through democratic means, exploiting the very freedoms it plans to eliminate.

The Danger of Complacency

The novel’s title embodies its central warning: the most dangerous thing Americans can believe is that their democracy is somehow immune to authoritarianism. Throughout the book, reasonable people such as journalists, professors, and politicians convince themselves that American institutions are too strong, that checks and balances will hold, and that surely things won’t get that bad.

This complacency pervades contemporary discourse. After every democratic norm is shattered, every norm violated, every authoritarian impulse expressed, a chorus insists: “This is still America. Our institutions will hold.” But institutions don’t defend themselves; people do. And when people assume institutions will automatically preserve democracy, those institutions weaken.

We’ve watched this pattern unfold: election results contested without evidence, violence at the Capitol treated as legitimate political discourse, criminal indictments framed as political persecution, and suggestions that the Constitution should be “terminated” to overturn elections. Each time, some portion of the public normalizes what should be shocking, finding reasons why “this time is different” or “both sides do it.”

Lewis would recognize this incremental normalization. In the novel, democracy doesn’t collapse overnight; it erodes through a thousand small surrenders, each rationalized as pragmatic or temporary.

The Press as Savior and Scapegoat

One of the novel’s most prescient elements is its focus on journalism. Protagonist Doremus Jessup, a small-town newspaper editor, represents the crucial role of independent media in democracy. As Windrip’s regime consolidates power, attacking the press becomes central to the authoritarian project. Journalists are labeled “enemies of the people,” their reporting dismissed.

Today we see systematic attacks on journalism—calling reporters “enemies of the people,” labeling unfavorable coverage as “fake news,” threatening media companies with legal and regulatory retaliation follow Lewis’s playbook precisely. These attacks aren’t incidental to authoritarianism; they’re essential to it. Authoritarian movements require the ability to define reality, and independent journalism threatens that control.

Yet Lewis also understood journalism’s vulnerabilities. Some newspapers in his novel collaborate with authoritarianism, either out of ideological sympathy or out of business calculation. Others practice “both-sides” journalism, treating authoritarian lies and democratic truths as equally valid perspectives. Still others prioritize access and profit over democratic accountability.

Today’s media landscape reflects these same tensions. Some outlets function as propaganda arms for authoritarian impulses. Mainstream media often struggles to call authoritarianism by its name, preferring euphemisms like “norm-breaking” or “controversial.” The economic collapse of local journalism has created news deserts where citizens lack reliable information about their own communities. Meanwhile, social media has fragmented shared reality, creating echo chambers where conspiracy theories flourish.

Economic Anxiety and Scapegoating

Windrip rises to power during economic hardship. He promises prosperity but delivers only to his cronies and corporate backers. To distract from broken promises, he needs scapegoats—immigrants, intellectuals, Jews, socialists, anyone coded as “other” or “elite.”

This economic anxiety-to-scapegoating pipeline dominates contemporary politics. Real economic struggles, such as stagnant wages, rising costs, and job insecurity, create genuine grievances. But rather than addressing systemic causes like corporate consolidation, financialization, or the gutting of labor protections, authoritarian movements redirect anger toward vulnerable populations.

Immigrants become the reason for economic struggles, not corporate exploitation. Cultural elites become the enemy, not the economic elites extracting wealth. This misdirection is intentional and effective. Lewis shows how Windrip’s corporate backers use his populist rhetoric while implementing policies that harm working people—tax cuts for the wealthy, union suppression, and environmental deregulation.

The pattern persists today: populist rhetoric combined with plutocratic policy. Campaign on forgotten workers; govern for billionaires and corporations. Blame immigrants for job losses while supporting businesses that offshore production. Attack cultural elites while cutting taxes for economic elites.

Respectable Conservatives

Perhaps Lewis’s most uncomfortable insight concerns how “respectable” conservatives enable authoritarianism. In the novel, traditional Republicans and business leaders initially view Windrip as vulgar and dangerous. But they ultimately support him, calculating that they can control him, that he’s preferable to liberals, that at least he’ll cut their taxes and suppress labor movements.

They’re wrong. Windrip uses them, then discards them when convenient. But by then, the democratic guardrails they helped dismantle are gone.

This pattern has played out in contemporary American politics. Establishment Republicans who privately expressed disgust with authoritarian impulses publicly enabled them, calculating that they could control the situation or at least achieve policy goals. Federal judges confirmed, tax cuts passed, regulations rolled back, and democratic norms shattered in the process.

Lewis understood that authoritarianism rarely succeeds without the collaboration of traditional elites who convince themselves they’re being strategic. These enablers tell themselves they’re pragmatists, that they’re preventing something worse, that they’re working from within to moderate extremism. History rarely judges them kindly.

Violence as a Political Tool

In It Can’t Happen Here, Windrip creates a paramilitary force, the Minute Men, who terrorize opponents under the guise of patriotic activism. Political violence becomes normalized, framed as a justified response to existential threats. Opponents aren’t merely wrong; they’re traitors who must be eliminated.

The novel’s depiction of political violence, from rhetoric to action, mirrors the following contemporary concerns:

• Political rallies where violence against protesters is encouraged

• Armed groups are intimidating voters and election officials

• Threats against public health officials, school board members, and election workers

• A violent attack on the Capitol to prevent the certification of the election results

• Ongoing threats against judges, prosecutors, and witnesses in cases involving political figures

Lewis understood that once violence becomes an acceptable political tool, democratic discourse becomes impossible. You cannot debate someone who threatens to kill you. You cannot compromise with movements that view opposition as treason. Once violence enters politics, democracy ends not immediately, but inevitably.

The Illusion of Normalcy

One of the novel’s most chilling elements is how life continues to seem normal even as tyranny takes hold. People still go to work, eat dinner, and complain about traffic. The trains run on time. Most citizens aren’t directly affected, at least not at first. This creates an illusion that things aren’t really that bad, that critics are hysterical, that life goes on.

But for targeted populations, such as journalists, intellectuals, minorities, political opponents, life transforms into a nightmare. The novel depicts concentration camps on American soil, political prisoners, and state-sanctioned murder. Yet for many Americans, these horrors remain abstractions, things happening to other people in other places.

For many Americans today, democratic backsliding remains theoretical. Elections still happen. Courts still function. Daily life continues. This allows normalization—the sense that surely things can’t be that serious if everything seems basically fine.

But for immigrants facing family separation, for election workers receiving death threats, for journalists targeted by harassment campaigns, for communities facing voter suppression, for people whose rights are being systematically rolled back, it’s already happening. The question is whether the rest of America will recognize it before it’s too late.

The Resistance

Yet It Can’t Happen Here isn’t ultimately a story of despair. It’s a story about resistance. Doremus Jessup transforms from complacent editor to active resister, eventually joining an underground movement. Lewis shows that resistance begins with individuals refusing to normalize tyranny, speaking truth when silence is safer, and choosing principle over comfort.

The novel suggests that authoritarianism, for all its power, remains fragile. It depends on compliance, on people following orders, on citizens accepting that resistance is futile. When enough people refuse, even when journalists keep reporting, when bureaucrats resist illegal orders, when ordinary citizens choose courage over convenience, authoritarian power can crack.

This offers hope for contemporary America, but hope tempered by realism. Lewis shows that resistance comes at a tremendous cost. Characters lose jobs, families, freedom, and lives. The decision to resist isn’t romantic; it’s agonizing. Most people, understandably, choose survival and accommodation.

But some don’t. And sometimes, that’s enough.

Lewis titled his novel as a question Americans were asking in 1935, watching Europe descend into fascism. The implied answer “No, of course not, we’re America” was precisely the complacency he wanted to challenge.

Lewis’s answer is clear: Yes. It absolutely can. In fact, it’s happening slowly, incrementally, but unmistakably. The warning signs are evident:

• Systematic attacks on democratic institutions and norms

• Demonization of independent media and the judiciary

• Political violence is increasingly normalized

• One major party aligning with authoritarian principles

• Growing acceptance of strongman politics

• Attempts to overturn legitimate elections

• Scapegoating of vulnerable populations

• Collaboration of elites who should know better

But Lewis also suggests that “it” doesn’t have to happen. Democracy isn’t destiny, nor is its preservation, nor is its collapse. The future depends on choices made by ordinary people: journalists, politicians, voters, and citizens. The question isn’t whether authoritarianism can come to America. The question is whether Americans will recognize it, resist it, and defend the democratic institutions that protect everyone.

Seeing Clearly

Perhaps It Can’t Happen Here’s greatest gift is its insistence that we see clearly—not through partisan lenses or wishful thinking—but with unflinching honesty about authoritarian patterns and democratic fragility.

The novel refuses the comfort of American exceptionalism—the belief that our history, Constitution, or character immunizes us against authoritarianism. It challenges the assumption that fascism announces itself with obvious symbols and explicit ideology. It rejects the notion that authoritarianism only happens to other countries, in different times, to other people.

Instead, Lewis shows authoritarianism as it actually operates: incrementally, opportunistically, wrapped in familiar symbols and appealing to genuine grievances. It comes with flags and platitudes, promising restoration and security. It exploits democratic processes to destroy democracy. It turns citizens against one another, normalizes the unthinkable, and transforms the inconceivable into the inevitable unless people choose to resist.

The warning is clear. The question is whether we’re listening.