It Can’t Happen Here was Lewis’s response to the much-repeated political assertion of the novel’s title, which in turn was a common reaction to the rise of fascism in Europe and the parallel rise of American demagogues. Lewis believed that American complacency about the robustness of its constitution and political institutions was dangerous and issued this novel as a wake-up call.

Set in the (then) very near future, the novel sees charismatic Senator Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, elected President of the United States on a brazenly populist platform. Ostensibly a Democrat, Windrip is uninterested in party politics. He freely promises things he knows he cannot deliver, such as $5,000 a year for each citizen. On election he declares an emergency and effectively suspends the constitution. Following the rapid take-over of all institutions, an approach modelled on that used by the Nazis in 1933, Windrip outlaws dissent, incarcerates his political enemies in concentration camps, and trains and arms a paramilitary force to act as his enforcers. He curtails women and minority rights and removes any opposition by individual states by dividing the country into administrative sectors managed by “Corpo” authorities. The surviving opposition members flee to Canada where a Government in exile is formed.

The events of the novel are told from the perspective of Doremus Jessup, a small-town newspaper editor. Jessup is a familiar archetype – a paternal figure, well-known and respected in his community in Vermont, near the border with Canada. He is a liberal figure instinctively sceptical of the easy solutions offered by Windrup, but equally questioning the communist ideas of a local trade union activist. He is an early prototype of Atticus Finch, determined to do the right thing even at a huge personal cost. He bravely prints an editorial critical of the new President, which quickly leads to him being arrested and his paper seized by the authorities. His son-in-law attempts to intercede on his behalf and is summarily executed, in one of the novel’s most brutal and unsettling scenes.

Jessup’s joins and begins to organise the resistance, printing in secret the “Vermont Vigilance”. But it is only a matter of time before his role is exposed and he is thrown into a concentration camp, beaten and tortured along with many of his friends and companions. Lewis cleverly includes several extracts from articles by European journalists who claim to have inspected these camps and found them harmless centres for the unemployed and homeless, re-education camps, in a chilling echo of the white-washing of the Nazis camps in Germany. He further anchors his narrative in the recent American political landscape by introducing characters from the real world.

Shad Ledue, the local district commissioner and Jessup’s former hired man, is a menacing threat throughout the novel. He resents his employer and menaces his daughter Sissy. However the women in this novel are not just passive victims. She discovers evidence of his corruption and exposes him, leading to his imprisonment in the same camp as her father, where the other inmates waste no time in murdering him. Jessup’s other daughter takes revenge on her husband’s executioner by crashing into his plane in mid-flight.

Windrup’s administration crumbles and he is deposed by his deputy, who in turn doesn’t last long. The novel closes with America in chaos but with the opposition to the Corpo-Government fighting back and Jessup still doing what he can to organise resistance.

In marketing the novel in 2019 the publishers are understandably emphasising the parallels between Windrup and Trump, a populist idiot, “vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected.” While their personal qualities are indeed similar, Trump has not yet suspended the Supreme Court, arrested members of Congress or abolished states. (I’m sure he has considered all of these at one point or another!) The point is that It Can’t Happen Here was a response to the rise of 1930’s fascism, and we aren’t quite there yet in the 21^st Century, however scary some of the parallels might be.   Hopefully I won’t look back on this review one day when President for Life Trump is inaugurated, and wonder how I could have been so complacent.