Claire Sprague

It Can Happen Here: Jack London Sinclair Lewis Philip Roth

Can right wing revolution happen here? Yes, say three great American writers: Jack London, Sinclair Lewis and Philip Roth. In the first dystopia, "The Iron Heel", London imagines a proto-fascist Oligarchy that precipitates the overthrow of the elected government by throwing a bomb in the House of Representatives in 1913. That act would be called terrorist today. No proto-fascist group needs to do the deed in 1936 and 1940. The two elected presidents do it for them. President Buzz Windrip shows his true colors as a fascist in "It Can't Happen Here" and President Charles Lindbergh, the celebrity aviator and America First sympathizer, shows his when he defeats FDR and acts out his political sympathies in "The Plot Against America". Does Donald Trump know that America First, his slogan during his campaign, had a prior life as an isolationist movement or does he count on our ignorance of American history? Few readers of "The Call of the Wild" know that London was a committed Socialist whose works influenced George Orwell's "1984". Orwell praised "The Iron Heel"'s political prescience, but was less sure of its literary strengths. Nonetheless, the novel is a formidable work of imagination that has been called America's "1984". "It Can't Happen Here" was published just before FDR's second term when the country was in deep depression and Hitler's rise had barely begun. "The Plot Against America" centers on a Jewish family in a fascist America. It overlaps Lewis's novel in fictional time, taking the reader into the 1940s. It has happened here in fictional time. Can it happen here in historical time? All three novels underscore the historical strengths of native right wing movements. Fascism did not happen here, but these novels powerfully evoke its dark potential in American life.