Book review - It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

 From Gemini AI on 08/10/25

Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel, It Can't Happen Here, offers a powerful and enduring message about the fragility of democracy and the dangers of political complacency. While written in a specific historical context—the rise of fascism in Europe and the political climate of the Great Depression in America—the book's themes have proven to be remarkably prescient and relevant to contemporary society.

Here are some of the key benefits of reading It Can't Happen Here:

• A Warning About the Rise of Authoritarianism: The novel serves as a chilling cautionary tale about how a charismatic demagogue can exploit economic hardship, social unrest, and nationalistic fervor to gain power. The fictional president, Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, is a populist leader who promises a return to "traditional" values and prosperity, all while consolidating power, dismantling democratic institutions, and creating a paramilitary force to enforce his will. This provides a clear illustration of how fascism can take root even in an established democracy.

• Exploration of Political Communication and Propaganda: Lewis, a Nobel laureate, was keenly aware of the power of mass media. The protagonist, a small-town newspaper editor named Doremus Jessup, witnesses firsthand how a demagogue can manipulate the media to spread propaganda and control public opinion. The novel highlights the crucial role of a free press and the dangers of media censorship, a theme that remains highly relevant in the age of social media and misinformation.

• The Importance of Individual Resistance: Through the eyes of Doremus Jessup, the novel emphasizes the necessity of individual courage and resistance in the face of tyranny. Jessup's journey from a complacent liberal to a member of an underground resistance movement demonstrates that citizens cannot be silent bystanders when their rights and freedoms are under threat. The book suggests that even small acts of defiance are vital in a struggle against oppression.

• A Call for Vigilance and Critical Thinking: The title itself—It Can't Happen Here—is an ironic statement that challenges the reader's own sense of security. The novel forces a confrontation with the idea that democracy is not an unshakeable given, but a fragile system that requires constant vigilance. It encourages readers to be critical of political rhetoric, to recognize the warning signs of authoritarianism, and to actively participate in their democracy.

Historical and Social Commentary: By reading It Can't Happen Here, readers gain insight into the political and social anxieties of the 1930s. The novel reflects on the appeal of figures like Louisiana politician Huey Long (who inspired the character of Windrip) and the fear of European fascism spreading to the United States. It also explores how economic desperation can make a population more susceptible to radical promises and demagoguery.

My comment - It has happened here in the US in 2025. The US government has transitioned from a democracy to an autocracy. The question for democracy lovers is not how to prevent autocracy, but how to minimize and eliminate it and restore democratic processes. There are many avenues of correction. Perhaps the most important is to get money out of political campaigns.

The first death knell of democracy was when the Supreme Court opined in Citizens United that a corporation is a person and money is free speech so corporations can contribute unlimited amounts of money to pollical campaigns thereby buying politicians. This single ruling gives immense power to oligarchs to control the political processes.

The second death knell is making the criminal justice system for sale to lawyers who can sue and drag out adjudication processes until they bankrupt opposing parties in legal proceedings. The person with the most money wins.

The third death knell was the rise to "alternative facts" promulgated by social media and unaccountable journalists who promote propaganda and disinformation to obtain political power persuading critical illiterate people to support them.

The fourth death knell was the use of fear of the other to promote a savior idolizing dynamic where people's insecurities are enhanced so they will acquiesce to giving up their power and agency to a charismatic leader who promises security and comfort.

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis and 1984 by George Orwell are highly recommended to people interested in exploring the dynamics of our current society.

Themes from The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024

 

The themes that have emerged for me from The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024  are:

1. The earth is getting warmer and having negative consequences for the ecological balances which we humans have become accustomed to.
2. This climate warming is having negative consequences up to and ending in death for many living things.
3. A small group of under-supported scientists are studying what's happening and their findings are largely ignored or dismissed by the decision makers except in a few instances.
4. Science journalism is one way of informing and educating people about what is happening to them which is outside their level of awareness because the changes are insidious except when they culminate in catastrophic weather events.

Some observers have noted that because of these four things social anxiety and tension has risen contributing to political polarization and the rise of autocracies exemplified by the "strong man" leader who promises to "fix everything" and make people safe and more secure. This political solution is delusional because it doesn't address the underlying problem which is human caused climate change.

What will help? A correct diagnosis of the problem causing the rise in anxiety and plans that are effective in addressing the creation and maintenance of the problem. This requires cooperation, collaboration, and joint efforts around the planet. Isolation and nationalism will not help, but only maintain and increase the problem. There needs to be a shift from the emphasis on private wealth and profit to a sharing and creation of health giving commons. This is a huge shift in values especially in the richest country in the world, the US. What will bring this shift in values in the US population? The worsening of circumstances until people have to find a better way to live if they are to survive. And then a transformation into cooperative, collaborative, mutually satisfying democratic processes.

PS - The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024 is the August 2024 selected read of the Allnonfiction Book Discussion Group. If you are interested in joining the Allnonfiction Book Discussion Group you can find more about it here.

The consumer price index

The chapter about the CPI (Consumer Price Index) in Who Is Government? edited by Michael Lewis,  was interesting and helped me understand what we read and hear about all the time.

I had a general idea of what the CPI means but John Lanchester's explanation of it in the chapter, The Number, made it much more understandable,. As he points out the CPI is an imperfect indicator but gives us a rough idea of how the economy is functioning. Most Americans though have no idea about this concept and its use. 

The economy under Biden was doing great, one of the best in the world, but people focused, supposedly, on the "price of eggs" if you believe the pundits, and elected Trump who has trashed the economy with his tariff nonsense. We are in for some very dark days in the coming couple of years due to his and his administration's incompetence.

So the CPI is only as good as our understanding of it and the use we make of it.

What can we learn from A Day In The Life Of Abed Salama?

 Summary

David Markham recommends A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, a 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction book, to his colleagues. The book, focusing on a Palestinian father's desperate search for his son after a bus accident, powerfully illustrates the hardships faced by Palestinians due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Markham highlights the book's ability to illuminate the complex realities of life in Gaza and the systemic obstacles faced by Palestinians. He positions the book as a valuable resource for increasing understanding of the conflict, relevant to psychotherapists' work. The book's immersive narrative explores the intertwined lives and histories of individuals caught within the conflict.

For the book, A Day In The Life Of Abed Salama

Subscribe to Markham's Slow News in the upper right corner. 

Send this article to friends and family to let them know the high quality of life afforded to citizens of New York State using the email icon at the bottom of the post. 

Post this article to your social media to help spread the good news that New York cares about mothers, babies, families, and their community.

How does disinformation go viral?

 

Across groups, social influences also produce noise. If someone starts a meeting by favoring a major change in the company’s direction, that person might initiate a discussion that leads a group unanimously to support the change. Their agreement might be a product of social pressures, not of conviction. If someone else had started the meeting by indicating a different view, or if the initial speaker had decided to be silent, the discussion might have headed in an altogether different direction—and for the same reason. Very similar groups can end up in divergent places because of social pressures.

Kahneman, Daniel; Sibony, Olivier; Sunstein, Cass R.. Noise . Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition. 

Sometimes what Kahneman et al. call “informational cascades” is called “peer pressure.” Solomon Ashe and other social psychologists demonstrated this dynamic decades ago.

We have colloquial sayings like “Better to go along to get along,” and “When in Rome you do as the Romans do,” and “Why go against the grain?” and “Don’t upset the apple cart,” and “You shouldn’t disturb the status quo.”

Keeping with the title of their book, the authors write that informational cascades are “noise.” Indeed they are. A major contributor to informational cascades is power and what are sometimes called “opinion leaders.” The first story told about the incident, event, or topic "frames" the future discussion to which any subsequent offering will be compared. "Disinformation" often goes viral in this way with the first story constantly being spread as subsequent commentors try to rebut it.

When posts on social media go "viral" they demonstrate what Kahneman is calling an "informational cascade."

To what extent are you an opinion leader in the groups you participate in? When have you been the leader and when have you been subject to another leader and group pressure? Have you ever participated in an organizational decision which didn’t seem right to you but you went along because you did not want to challenge the developing majority opinion of the group?

Noise is well worth reading as it provides a deeper understanding of the disinformation so rampant in our society in our digital age.

Has the society envisioned in The Handmaid's Tale has become real in some states in the United States?

With the Dobbs decision by the US Supreme Court have some states in the United States taken a step closer to the society envisioned in Margaret Atwood's novel, The Handmaid's Tale?

 

My favorite books of fiction in 2022

The best fiction books I have read this year out of about 32 are Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and the Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is a classic but still very relevant today. Atlas Shrugged is a fictional story which exemplifies Rand's Objectivist philosophy. Basically society is made up of what Rand calls "producers", "looters", and "traders." We therapists are the producers while those who manage us are the looters and hopefully the relationship we develop with our clients is based on trading.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles is a new novel about a bunch of late adolescents in a coming of age story in the 50s which demonstrates the impact of ACEs and family dynamics long before there was a language to describe such concepts.

An honorable mention goes to Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford which is a story about a boy who is a Chinese immigrant in the early 1900s who is put up as the prize in a raffle at the Seattle World's Fair in 1909. Years later his daughter, a journalist, is trying to get her elderly father to disclose his life story about himself and his wife, the journalist's mother.

Robert E. Lee and Me by Ty Seidule is MarkhamsSlowNews nonfiction book of 2021.

Robert E. Lee and Me by Ty Seidule is the book of the year in 2021 which most influenced me. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in systemic racism in America.

 

 

Four signs of the rise of authoritarian rule.

 

Trumpism, Covid-19, and the failure of U.S. government to keep its citizens safe

The nation with the world’s highest Coronavirus death toll — where the first wave hasn’t even plateaued or slowed yet — reopening already. Seeing new spikes across half its states. What the?

America is about to show the world what a worst-case scenario for Coronavirus looks like.

The Trump administration has bungled Coronavirus unbelievably badly. Drinking bleach, it turns out, isn’t a cure. But it’s about to get so, so much worse.

For more click here.

Editor's note:

Michael Lewis wrote about "the fifth risk" in his book with the same name, The Fifth Risk, which was published in 2018. The five risks to national well being and safety are nuclear accident, nuclear war, failure of energy innovation, failure of electrical grid, and governmental incompetence and mismanagement. Americans have arrived at the point of failed government because of their inability to elect competent executives to management their government.

The cult of personality has taken precedence over competence in their selection criteria and the consequences are devastating for the quality of U.S. national well being.

U.S. adult reading habits

Percentage of U.S. fiction market accounted for by romance genre in 2016 = 23%
Annual value of romance novel industry = $1.08 billion
Percentage of U.S. American adults who have read at least one book in 2019 = 72%
Percentage of U.S. America adults who have read at least one print book in 2019 = 65%
Percentage of U.S. American adults who have read at least one ebook in 2019r = 25%
Percentage of U.S. American adults who have listened to at least one audiobook in 2019 = 20%

Non fiction books I read in 2019

Non fiction books I read in 2019

Nonfiction

01/05/19 White Fragility by Robin Diangelo

01/11/19 Healing: The Patient Must Minister To Himself by Kenneth Wapnick audiobook of workshop

01/17/19 Saving Faith: A Memoir of Courage, Conviction, and A Calling by Elizabeth Osta

01/17/19 On Becoming The Touches Of Sweet Harmony: The Holy Relationship In Form by Ken Wapnick

01/25/19 The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson, Blinkist

01/25/19 Reading Like A Writer by Francine Prose, Blinkist

01/25/19 On The Shortness Of Life by Seneca

01/25/19 Why Religion by Elaine Pagels, Blinkist

01/27/19 Storyworthy by Matthew Dick You can master storytelling by learning the right techniques. To tell a great story, include a meaningful element of change somewhere in the narrative, steer clear of vulgarity and unnecessary flourishes, and transport your audience by using the present tense.

02/4/19 Waiter Rant:Thanks for the Tip - Confessions of a Cynical Waiter by Steve Dublanica

Read this book over the course of a few months on the Kindle app on my phone while at the office. I enjoyed this book a great deal. Steve is a great writer. Former seminarian, lost soul, marking time while he supports himself as a waiter.

06/06/19 Barracoon: The Story Of The Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston

06/09/19 And The Pursuit Of Happiness by Maira Kalman

06/15/19 Who Was The Dali Lama by Dan Meachen Rau

06/19/  9 Who Were The Rolling Stones by Dana Meachen Rau

06/30/19 The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

07/05/19 The Lifetimes When Jesus and Buddha Knew Each Other by Gary R. Renard

07/15/19 Who Was Gandhi by Dana Meachen Rau

07/17/19 Who Was Cesar Chavez by Dana Meachen Rau

07/18/19 Recollections by Viktor Frankl

07/22/19 Really Important Stuff My Cat Has Taught Me by Cynthia Copeland

08/25/19 Moonshots by Naveen Jain and John Shroeter

08/30/19 Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose

10/20/19 Regarding The Pain Of Others by Susan Sontag

10/25/19 Where There’s Smoke, There’s Dinner: Stories Of A Seared Childhood by Regi Carpenter

11/30/19 Gleanings From A Country Journal: Life on the Southern Tier of New York State in 1870 by Lewis Morris Hall

12/29/19 The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis

The five I enjoyed the most and learned the most from

1. White Fragility by Robin Diangelo
2. The books by ken Wapnick
3. On The Shortness of Life by Seneca
4. Waiter Rant by Steve Dublanica
5. The Lifetimes when Jesus and Buddha New Each Other by Gary Renard

The one book I would recommend to the general reader:

White Fragility by Robin Diangelo

"A" Great Amercian Novel

Tyler Malone has an interesting short essay in The Fall, 2019 issue of the Hedgehog Review entitled, "An Ever More Perfect Novel".

He writes that the idea of "The" Great American Novel was born in 1868 in an article in The Nation magazine written by John William DeForest where he wrote that the best American novel would be "the picture of the ordinary emotions and manners of American existence."

Suggestions have been made for the winner of the Great American Novel accolade such as Moby-Dick, The Great Gatsby, Uncle Tom's Cabin, To Kill A Mocking Bird, and many others.

At the end of the essay, Malone opines that since America is always changing there never can be "The" Great American Novel, but prefers to think of the idea as "A" Great American Novel. In other words, I think Malone is saying that as times change, the novel that best captures the identity of the American Spirit will change as well.

As an amateur sociologist, I tend to think about this question as generational. We have the Depression generation, the Greatest generation who fought World War II, the Boomers, the Gen xers, the Millential's and now Gen Z. So if you have to pick A Great American Novel for each of these generations which novel would you nominate. I'd open it up for non fiction nominations too.

What fiction and nonfiction books best exemplify the American experience in each of the above mentioned generations?

People who read books live longer

People who read books live longer.