It Cant Happen Here. Are we so sureampnbspMany would suggest that it certainly could happen here which is precisely the point that Sinclair Lewis was making when he wrote this book in 1935. This incidentally was still a few years before the worst fears would unfold in Germany giving the book a somewhat prophetic flair.ampnbspBased on the American Democrat Huey Long it has been despite that often been associated with right wing movements. This is ironic as only a few years later it would be the Democrat FDR that would put AmericanJapanese citizens into concentration camps using emergency powers much as the books protagonist Berzelius Windrip was portrayed as doing after beating FDR in 1936. ampnbspIn case you miss the irony the reallife FDR actually did what the fictional Windrip was portrayed as doingThe long history of abandoning civil rights using emergency powers was reprised more recently during the COVID pandemic when Western nations and individual US states ostensibly democracies nonetheless invoked emergency powers to enact all sorts of authoritarian measures.Thus when pondering whether or not it can happen here which all assume it can we are perhaps left with a more intriguing questionampnbspWhy hasnt it happened hereampnbspAnd then once this has been answered work to ensure that the factors that have prevented a fullblown authoritarian regime from materializing in the United States are retained and strengthened.