“It Can’t Happen Here”

We all just watched a new, dark chapter of American history unfold, with more to come, no doubt. Shamelessly, the Empire of Lies showed us the raw, rancid stuff of which it is made, and the ugliness of the spectacle is beyond appalling.

Maybe you’re trying to process the recent, midnight defenestration of President Joe Biden by power players within the Democratic Party. That, and the backroom, rigged, wired elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris to the role of presidential nominee.

What the hell just happened?

An 89-year-old book comes to mind. I read it long ago, back in college. Over the weekend I pulled my copy and skimmed through it.

In the depths of the Great Depression, Sinclair Lewis wrote a dystopian tale about what might happen if the U.S. followed the political path of Germany, Italy and Japan. It’s called It Can’t Happen Here.

Fearful of the rise of fascism abroad, Lewis explores the idea of “What will happen when America has a dictator?”

Lewis’ mid-1930s vision of the future is rooted in his own time and circumstances. He lays out a series of possible events in the then-upcoming election year of 1936.

In essence, a populist-nationalist demagogue who distinctly resembled Gov./Sen. Huey Long of Louisiana comes along to unseat President Franklin Roosevelt and take over the U.S. government.

Then America’s new chief executive turns the nation into a police state.

Per Lewis, this new authoritarian regime bans public dissent and wraps an iron grip of narrative control around all media. The country is blanketed with fake news and one-sided, party-line political opinion. Routinely, powerful bosses arrest and jail opponents, and employ thuggish paramilitary groups to keep resistance under control.

In Lewis’ fictional, remade America, federalism dies as the country’s governance goes central and national. All matters of import are run by a greedy, grifting, ignorant cabal that installs itself in corridors of power across Washington, D.C., while state boundaries become nearly irrelevant.

Sound familiar? Maybe a little?

In characteristic fascist fashion, dominant political elements partner with large banks and business groups to run the economy. Yet despite the efforts of these new helmsmen, the ship of state founders, prosperity declines and the land suffers.

In due course, people go hungry and become angry. In response, the bigshots take the country to war, a historically proven means to distract the masses. But in the end, there’s no theory of victory amongst these power-mad fools. They muck it up, like they’ve mucked up everything else before.

Per Lewis’ vision, things go from bad to worse. Eventually, deep sociological fault lines move, and America descends into a new civil war.

It Can’t Happen Here is a work of fiction. But as Mark Twain said, truth is stranger than fiction.

Can it happen here in 21st-century America? Read on.

Can It Happen Here?

By Byron King

When It Can’t Happen Here was published, the book was a bombshell, so to speak: an instant bestseller that was widely reviewed and discussed. Lewis’ book hit political nerves in Depression-era America.

Since the day It Can’t Happen Here hit the bookstore shelves, the novel has served as a lodestone of the American political left. Indeed, this tome ranks high among the hard left’s model ideas of how dangerous it is to cede power to the country’s conservative, nationalist, populist political elements.

Over the past nine decades, across almost five generations, this novel has been assigned reading in many schoolrooms, from English classes to courses in history, government and political science.

In 2016 and early 2017, It Can’t Happen Here rocketed once again to the top of the bestseller lists based on fears of the then-looming presidency of Donald Trump. Major media, from The New York Times to CNN and many other outlets, ran long articles about Sinclair Lewis’ storyline.

Predictably, Orange Man Trump was the archetypal populist bad guy, preparing to seize power, line his pockets, fill the jail cells and generally oppress anyone who didn’t toe the proverbial line.

This new interest in an old novel arose because, of course, left-wing American political culture despises any politician who operates outside of the progressive thought bubble. Per the radical left, these days, there’s no room in American politics for anyone to champion the core, working-class population of flyover country — those deplorable Walmart shoppers, so to speak.

Thus, these people live in mortal fear of Donald Trump. And understand this: It’s not because Trump is Trump. No, it’s because Trump represents a credible threat to their long-term grip on American culture and political power.

Now, return to events of this past month. There was that so-called “debate” on June 27, broadcast on CNN, home field for Democrat media, refereed by two talking heads who are, on their best days, no friends of Trump.

Then and there, with zero assist from “the previous president,” as Trump is constantly called by people who can’t bear to say his name, Biden crashed before the entire world.

Were you surprised? Well, not if you’ve been reading Paradigm Press, if you’ll allow a bit of puffery on this end. Because we knew it was coming. Indeed, we’ve banged the drum about “Joe will go” for perhaps 18 months, maybe more.

In the fall of 2022, Jim Rickards and I discussed how Biden likely won’t be on the ballot in 2024. It was always going to be just a question of when, where and how he moved toward the exit. And now we know.

So what was the plan for Biden and his enablers? Another episode of Weekend at Bernie’s, except at the White House? That, and continue the massive charade for a few more months, at least through Election Day?

Generally, Biden’s problem has always been that nobody can keep such a big lie so deeply hidden for so long. Sure, the juggling act worked for a while. Biden held few press availabilities and even then, everything was scripted down to those large-print cue cards.

Yet still, Biden routinely embarrassed himself, his handlers and supporters, and the country.

Through it all, the compliant, state-supporting, sycophant media played the coverup game, singing along in support of Biden like the Mendelssohn Choir bellowing out “Ode to Joy.”

Of course, until just a few days ago Biden remained on glidepath to be nominated and run again for president.

“He’s fine,” said the handlers. “Fit as a fiddle.” Press reports to the contrary were dismissed as raw partisanship.

Now the legacy of lies is fast unraveling. And to follow the outline of Sinclair Lewis’ novel, one can rightly ask, who is pulling the power grab in America this time?

Blow away the toxic smoke and shovel off the stinking manure from everything about the Biden health coverup and the illuminating burst of this sordid American scandal is brighter than a thousand suns. It’s Watergate, times three orders of magnitude.

Indeed, the Biden health lie goes far beyond the defensive, comical, Baghdad Bob-like antics of a series of pathetic White House press spokespeople, let alone the ignorant trash talk of MSNBC studios (yes, the usual suspects).

It’s worse than bad; it’s ethically outrageous, revealing moral foundations that are rotten to the core, and which indict the entire cadre of the country’s governing class.

U.S. presidents — all of them — encounter hundreds of people every day, many in close proximity. With Biden, there can be no doubt that they saw what was going on. They all have eyes and ears, and it’s fair to say that people who rise to a position high enough in life to enter the White House tend not to be totally stupid.

Yet for several years, the public was told that President Joe Biden was el supremo. He was a man in charge, a voracious reader and detail-oriented guy who ran circles around his staff. Biden was, allegedly, a visionary leader, or so went the thread of his tapestry.

And yet despite all the press release archives of past brilliance, within four weeks of said recent debate, Biden is gone. He’s off the ticket and no longer running for president.

Now comes the next question, namely, who runs the country? That is, who exercises what the Constitution broadly describes as “the executive power” of the nation? Cuz it sure ain’t Joe Biden, and likely hasn’t been for quite some time.

We face a looming national argument over the very nature of American governance. As in, how many lies can a government tell its people? How can this particular cabal of power-mad people lie so much, so brazenly, with such gigantic implications? What kind of morally bankrupt, poisoned culture is this, anyhow?

There’s more to come, no doubt. We will learn more, and we will continue to be shocked at the depravity of much of the American political and media class; and just to be fair and balanced about things, the scandal will be bipartisan.

If there’s a positive side, perhaps we can find perspective in the words of the ancient Greek writer Aeschylus, that “wisdom comes through suffering.” Because in so many ways, the country will suffer as the Biden medical debacle unfolds.

For starters, the Biden scandal illustrates how people in power and positions of trust simply lie through their teeth — and also, sad to say, how so many others have bought into so many things that are simply, deeply and objectively not true.

Over time, one might avoid reality; but also, over enough time, no one avoids the consequences of avoiding reality. So hard times lie ahead, I believe.

Now the country must relearn fundamental lessons of self-governance. It must happen, if for no other reason than because, to borrow from the title of an old book, It Can Happen Here.

And God help us if we can’t fix it.