SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2024
We can't quite answer that question: "It can't happen here," Sinclar Lewis once said.
He didn't exactly mean it! Actually, that was the title of a famous book:
It Can't Happen Here
It Can't Happen Here is a 1935 dystopian political novel by American author Sinclair Lewis. Set in a fictionalized version of the 1930s United States, it follows an American politician, Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, who quickly rises to power to become the country's first outright dictator (in allusion to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany), and Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor who sees Windrip's fascist policies for what they are ahead of time and who becomes Windrip's most ardent critic. The novel was adapted into a play by Lewis and John C. Moffitt in 1936.
The novel was published during the heyday of fascism in Europe, which was reported on by Dorothy Thompson, Lewis's wife.
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Since its publication, It Can't Happen Here has been seen as a cautionary tale, starting with the 1936 presidential election and potential candidate Huey Long.
And so on from there.
Can (something resembling) it happen here? We'll suppose that the answer is yes.
For ourselves, we'll guess that liberal / progressive name-calling has long since run its course as an antidote to that possibility—as an effective electoral tool. That includes the more simple-minded attempts to say whether one of the current candidates actually is, or actually isn't, "a fascist."
By now, it's way too late for any of this to matter. But for the record, this:
Yesterday, one candidate was, once again, extending his talk about our nation's various "enemies of the people"—a group which is sometimes known as "the enemy from withjn."
He did this yesterday during a boisterous rally in Novi, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. You can see him doing so on the C-Span videotape, starting at minute 38.
What will you see at that point? This is what you'll witness:
You'll see the candidate talking about the reporters who were present to report on his rally, but also to videotape and televise it. This is part of what you'll see this particular candidate say:
UNNAMED CANDIDATE (10/26/24): See now—the camera didn't show that. For all of you at home, you're going to have to come in and watch in person.
Can you imagine? It's so nasty. They're so nasty. They're so evil. They are actually the enemy of the people, they really are. It's so evil.
This time, the candidate was saying that the members of the mainstream press were the people who are "so evil"—who are "the enemy of the people." He was complaining because a (presumably) stationary camera positioned to broadcast his rally hadn't been shifted to show the material on a video screen to which he'd been referring.
You can see him offering the background for this declaration starting at the 23-minute mark of the C-Span videotape. At that point, he shades his eyes as he looks to the back of the room, saying this, as he endlessly does, about the journalists huddled there:
UNNAMED CANDIDATE: You didn't know that because the fake news [shades eyes]—
Whoooaaa! You got a lot of fake news! You got a lot of bad ones back there! Whoa! That's a lot of fakers!
You know, you'd think they'd want their credibility back...
This continues for a while after that. At this point in the day's presentation, the journalists were simply "a lot of bad ones." At the 38-minute mark, it became official again:
The reporters were now described as "the enemy of the people," a bit like Lewis once said.
All across the face of the globe, it's part of the way our imperfect species is wired. We've always been wired to respond, not just to kings and queens, but also to the allure of "the strongman."
Sometimes those strongmen even turn out to be madmen. It has happened all over the globe, and of course it could happen here.
In this case, the enemy of the people in the back of the venue are working for owners who have agreed, in the immediate American context, that this possibility mustn't be discussed.
So it has gone in the current circumstance—including now, as Election Day draws near. Over here in Blue America, we have responded with our unimpressive journalistic leadership and with their pathetic pop guns.
We'll guess that this candidate is going to win, though there's no way to know at this point. With that in mind, a question arises:
How did we ever get to this place? How did we Blues ever get here?
Through what lack of skill—through what lack of self-awareness—have we finally reached this place? How have we finally reached the place where this outcome is thoroughly possible?
We'll be exploring that question in the coming week. For now, let's return to yesterday's question:
Did Marc Thiessen perhaps or possibly get it partially right?
Did he get it right in his column for the Washington Post? We apologize for the aggressive headline atop his piece. But concerning Blue America's latest pop gun, here's what the columnist Thiessen has said:
Harris’s closing argument is dishonest, desperate and hypocritical
[...]
Trump also did not say, as Harris claims, that he would use the American military to go after his political opponents. At her rallies, Harris plays a selectively edited clip of Trump saying in an interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo: “We have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics, and I think they’re the—and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military.” She then tells voters: “So, you heard his words. … He’s talking about that he considers anyone who doesn’t support him or who will not bend to his will an enemy of our country. … He is saying that he would use the military to go after them.”
No, he’s not. The words “in terms of Election Day” are omitted from the clip she plays, to mask the fact that Trump was answering a question about possible Election Day unrest—which he said could be “easily handled” by National Guard. She takes his quote out of context to make it seem he is saying something different than he is.
That’s not just dishonest, it’s hypocritical. As I recall, it was Democrats who accused Trump of violating his oath of office for failing to deploy the National Guard to protect the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Let’s be clear: I’d prefer Trump didn’t talk this way. In addition to being bad for the country, it’s bad politics: Such rhetoric is like fingernails on the chalk board to swing voters. But misrepresenting his words to suggest Trump would use the military to target ordinary Americans who oppose him is far more offensive.
That's how the column ended.
Question! Has Donald J. Trump ever actually said "that he would use the American military to go after his political opponents?" (We're quoting Thiessen's paraphrase.)
We will guess that he probably has! By now, there are very few things this badly disordered person hasn't said. We'll guess that there are things he has said which can be correctly paraphrased that way.
We'll assume he has said such things! But is that what he said to Bartiromo in the interview in question? As readers surely know, this interview has been widely cited all through our Blue American warrens, as our flailing corporate tribunes have fired their pop guns in the latest way.
Is that what he said to Bartiromo? In all honesty, no it isn't! Quite explicitly, he was asked a question about possible "chaos" on Election Day. Quite explicitly, he referred to "Election Day" as he replied to the question.
In that exchange with Bartiromo, he neither said nor suggested that he would "use the military to go after anyone who doesn't support him." In that exchange with Bartiromo, he neither said nor suggested that he would use the military to go after Adam Schiff or Nancy Pelosi.
In fact, he didn't name any political opponents at all. All in all, it was a nothingburger Q-and-A—a Q-and-A which has been transformed into the latest ineffective attack.
Tina Turner always said she liked it nice and rough. Our corporate multimillionaire tribunes—people like Joe and Mika, but even now Jake Tapper—tend to like it nice and easy.
In the matter of this Q-and-A, they pulled out their pop guns and began to embellish—began to engage in the time-honored practice of creative paraphrase.
Warning! By now, corporate tribunes in Red America are fully aware of this practice! When our tribunes behave this way, the tribunes at the Fox News Channel will in fact swing into action.
They've reported this sort of thing a million times by now. Also, the never tell viewers about the million-and-one disordered things this candidate really has said.
In this way, Red America's minds remain spotless, a little bit like ours.
No one is going to tell you what this candidate said in Novi. No one is going to tell you that he extended his "enemy from within" demonology in the way he did.
The children are lazing around today, happily spending their very large salaries. For ourselves, we'll guess that the Novi nutcase is going to win this year's election, though it's entirely possible that he won't.
How did we ever get to this place? We'll start with that tomorrow. For today, we'll close with embarrassment concerning a point about that one particular Q-and-A which we ourselves haven't cited:
Bartiromo asked the candidate about possible "chaos" on Election Day. The candidate said that, if necessary in the event of such chaos, the National Guard, or even the military, could respond.
This has been presented as a threat about what the candidate might do. That said, he won't be in office on Election Day! If someone decides to call out the military, it of course won't be him!
Is it about to happen here? We can't answer that question.
We can tell you what he said in Novi. As part of the way we've earned our way out, you'll hear it nowhere else!
Starting tomorrow: How we Blues managed to get here
