June 13, 2020

20,000 vinyl LPs 228: Sinclair Lewis ~ It Can't Happen Here, Donald Trump & the "Deep State"

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vinyl LP front cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®

 
I have been thinking about a book I read and had to give a report on when I was in high school in the fifties for my English Lit class; the assignment was to select a novel by Sinclair Lewis. Of the many books he wrote (link below), I selected the 1935 semi-satirical political novel It Can't Happen Here. Unfortunately, the book has a frightening resonance with events happening today. Historians have pointed out its similarities with the political rise of New York real estate figure and reality TV star, Donald Trump (link below).      


vinyl LP front cover
photo by Styrous®


It Can't Happen Here is a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression, when the country was largely oblivious to the aggression of Hitler, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press (sound familiar?). Called “a message to thinking Americans” by the Springfield Republican when it was published in 1935, It Can't Happen Here is a novel that remains as fresh and contemporary as today’s news. There is  an Introduction by Michael Meyer and an Afterword by Gary Scharnhorst.  


vinyl LP front cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®


In a nutshell, a power-hungry politician named Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, wins the 1936 United States presidential election on a populist platform, promising to restore the country to prosperity and greatness, and promising each citizen $5,000 a year. Portraying himself as a champion of traditional American values, he defeats President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Democratic convention then easily beats his Republican opponent in the November election.

Having previously foreshadowed some authoritarian measures in order to reorganize the United States government, he rapidly outlaws dissent, incarcerates political enemies in concentration camps, and trains and arms a paramilitary force called the Minute Men (named after the Revolutionary War militias of the same name), who terrorize citizens and enforce his policies and his "corporatist" regime. One of his first acts as president is to eliminate the influence of the United States Congress, which draws the ire of many citizens as well as the legislators themselves. The Minute Men respond to protests against his decisions harshly, attacking demonstrators with bayonets. In addition to these actions, his administration, known as the "Corpo" government, curtails women's and minority rights, and eliminates individual states by subdividing the country into administrative sectors. The government of these sectors is managed by "Corpo" authorities, usually prominent businessmen or Minute Men officers.

Those accused of crimes against the government appear before kangaroo courts presided over by military judges. Despite these dictatorial (and "quasi-draconian") measures, a majority of Americans approve of them, seeing them as painful but necessary steps to restore U.S. power (sound like MAGA?). One of his cronies brings up the matter of fascism in America, but a wealthy man dismisses it with the remark that it simply "can't happen here" (hence the novel's title), complete plot below.    


James B. Stewart ~ Deep State: Trump, the FBI, and the Rule of Law


Donald Trump references secret organizations, subversive plots and nefarious tape recordings that warn about a so called, "Deep State" (links below). In the United States of America, the "deep state" is used to describe "a hybrid association of government elements and parts of top-level industry and finance that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process." Intelligence agencies such as the CIA have been accused by elements of the Donald Trump administration of attempting to thwart its policy goals. Writing for The New York Times, the analyst Issandr El Amani warned against the "growing discord between a president and his bureaucratic rank-and-file", while analysts of the column The Interpreter wrote:    
Though the deep state is sometimes discussed as a shadowy conspiracy, it helps to think of it instead as a political conflict between a nation’s leader and its governing institutions.
— Amanda Taub and Max Fisher, The Interpreter
According to David Gergen, quoted in Time magazine, the term has been appropriated by Steve Bannon, Breitbart News and other supporters of the Trump Administration in order to delegitimize the critics of the current presidency. The 'deep state' theory has been dismissed by authors for The New York Times and New York Observer. The album cover illustration features a device for secret telephone recording; don't forget, the album was issued in 1975.   


vinyl LP front cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®


Reviewers at the time of the book's publication, and literary critics ever since, have emphasized the connection with Louisiana politician Huey Long, who was preparing to run for president in 1936. According to Boulard (1998), "the most chilling and uncanny treatment of Huey by a writer came with Lewis's It Can't Happen Here. Lewis portrayed a genuine U.S. dictator on the Hitler model. Starting in 1936 the WPA, a New Deal agency, performed the stage adaptation across the country; Lewis had the goal of hurting Long's chances in the 1936 election. Keith Perry argues that the key weakness of the novel is not that he decks out U.S. politicians with sinister European touches, but that he finally conceives of fascism and totalitarianism in terms of traditional U.S. political models rather than seeing them as introducing a new kind of society and a new kind of regime. Windrip (the president) is less a Nazi than a con-man-plus-Rotarian, a manipulator who knows how to appeal to people's desperation, but neither he nor his followers are in the grip of the kind of world-transforming ideology like Hitler's National Socialism.            

The Federal Theater Project (1934-1937) was a theatre program established during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal to fund live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United States. The project staged 21 simultaneous productions coast to coast of It Can't Happen Here by Lewis with adaptation by John C. Moffitt (link below).

Poster for the stage adaptation of It Can't Happen Here, October 27, 1936 at the Lafayette Theater as part of the Detroit Federal Theatre.     


1936 theater poster 


Poster for Federal Theatre Project presentation of "It Can't Happen Here" at the Adelphi Theatre, 54th Street, east of 7th Ave., showing the Statue of Liberty.       
       

WPA Federal Theatre presents "It can't happen here"


It was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administration, created not as a cultural activity but as a relief measure to employ artists, writers, directors, and theater workers. It was shaped by national director Hallie Flanagan into a federation of regional theaters that created relevant art, encouraged experimentation in new forms and techniques, and made it possible for millions of Americans to see live theatre for the first time. Although The Federal Theatre project consumed only one half of 1% of the allocated budget from the WPA and was widely considered a commercial and critical success, the project became a source of heated political contention. The House Un-American Activities Committee claimed the content of the FTP's productions were supporting racial integration between black and white Americans while also perpetuating an anti-capitalist communist agenda and cancelled funding for the project on June 30, 1939 (sound familiar?).         

In addition to the Lewis production, the project sponsored the Orson Welles (link below) Negro production of Voodoo Macbeth (link below) and the production of The Cradle Will Rock, by Marc Blitzstein and directed by Welles (links below).



vinyl LP back cover
photo by Styrous®


Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) purchased the rights in late 1935. By early 1936, screenwriter Sidney Howard completed an adaptation, his third of Lewis' novels. J. Walter Ruben was named to direct the film with the cast headed by Lionel Barrymore, Walter Connolly, Virginia Bruce and Basil Rathbone. But studio head Louis B. Mayer citing costs, indefinitely postponed production, to the publicly announced pleasure of the Nazi regime in Germany. Lewis and Howard countered that financial reason with information pointing to the influence of Berlin and Rome on movies. Will H. Hays, responsible for the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code, had notified Mayer of potential problems in the German market. Joseph Breen, head of the Production Code Administration department under Hays, thought the script was too "anti-fascist" and "so filled with dangerous material".         
       

vinyl LP back cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®


In December 1938, Charlie Chaplin announced his next movie would satirize Hitler (The Great Dictator). MGM's Hubbard "dusted off the script" in January, but the "idea of a dictator ruling America" had now been discussed in public for years. Hubbard rewrote a new climax, "showing a dictatorship in Washington and showing it being kicked out by disgruntled Americans as soon as they realized what had happened." The film was placed back on the production schedule for the third time with shooting starting in June and Lewis Stone playing Doremus Jessup. However, by July, MGM "admitted it would not make the movie after all."          

vinyl LP back cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®


The San Francisco theater company, The Z Collective, adapted the novel for the stage, producing it both in 1989 and 1992. In 2004, Z Space adapted the Collective's script into a radio drama that was broadcast on the Pacifica radio network on the anniversary of the original premiere by the Federal Theater Project.    

A new stage adaptation by Tony Taccone and Bennett S. Cohen premiered at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in September 2016 (link below).        


vinyl LP back cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®


In 1930, Lewis became the first writer from the United States to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was awarded "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters." His works are known for their insightful and critical views of American capitalism and materialism between the wars. He is also respected for his strong characterizations of modern working women. H. L. Mencken wrote of him, "[If] there was ever a novelist among us with an authentic call to the trade ... it is this red-haired tornado from the Minnesota wilds."       
    

vinyl LP back cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®


This vinyl LP is a recording released in 1973 of a reading of the novel by Michael Lewis, the son of Sinclair Lewis (link below).     


 
Michael Lewis 
date & photographer unknown
vinyl LP back cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®



vinyl LP back cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®


Sinclair Lewis was born on February 7, 1885, in the village of Sauk Centre, Minnesota. His father, Edwin J. Lewis, was a physician and a stern disciplinarian who had difficulty relating to his sensitive, unathletic third son. Lewis's mother, Emma Kermott Lewis, died in 1891. He was ungainly, tall, extremely thin, stricken with acne, somewhat pop-eyed and had trouble making friends. At the age of 13 he unsuccessfully ran away from home, wanting to become a drummer boy in the Spanish–American War. He earned money by selling plots to Jack London, including one for London's unfinished novel The Assassination Bureau, Ltd.     

Lewis married Grace Livingston Hegger (1887–1981), an editor at Vogue magazine, who he divorced in 1925. They had one son, Wells Lewis (1917–1944), named after British author H. G. Wells. As a U.S. Army lieutenant during World War II, Wells Lewis was killed in action on October 29, 1944, amid Allied efforts to rescue the "Lost Battalion" in France.

On May 14, 1928, Lewis married Dorothy Thompson, a political newspaper columnist. They had a son, Michael Lewis (link below), in 1930. Their marriage had virtually ended by 1937, and they divorced in 1942. Michael Lewis became an actor, who suffered with alcoholism, and died in 1975 of Hodgkin's lymphoma.  


Sinclair Lewis, Michael Lewis & Dorothy Thompson - 1935


Sinclair Lewis completed Main Street, which was published on October 23, 1920. Lewis's agent had the most optimistic projection of sales at 25,000 copies. In its first six months, Main Street sold 180,000 copies, and within a few years, sales were estimated at two million. According to biographer Richard Lingeman, "Main Street made [Lewis] rich—earning him about 4 million current [2018] dollars".
      
Lewis followed up this first great success with Babbitt (1922), Dodsworth (1929), Arrowsmith (1925), which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize but Lewis declined it, still upset that Main Street had not won the prize. It was adapted as a 1931 Hollywood film directed by John Ford and starring Ronald Colman which was nominated for four Academy Awards.

Lewis published Elmer Gantry in 1927; it depicted an hypocritical evangelical minister. The novel was denounced by many religious leaders and banned in some U.S. cities. It was adapted for the screen more than a generation later as the basis of the 1960 movie starring Burt Lancaster, who earned a Best Actor Oscar for his performance.      
     
Sinclair Lewis died in Rome from advanced alcoholism on January 10, 1951, aged 65. His body was cremated and his remains were buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Sauk Centre, Minnesota. His final novel World So Wide (1951) was published posthumously.        


vinyl LP back cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®


Compared to his contemporaries, Lewis' reputation suffered a precipitous decline among literary scholars throughout the 20th century. Despite his enormous popularity during the 1920s, by the 21st century most of his works had been eclipsed in prominence by other writers with less commercial success during the same time period, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.     

Since the 2010s there has been renewed interest in Lewis' work, in particular his 1935 dystopian satire It Can't Happen Here. In the aftermath of the 2016 United States Presidential Election, It Can't Happen Here surged to the top of the list of best-selling books on Amazon.      
        


vinyl LP back cover detail
detail photo by Styrous®


vinyl LP, side 1
photo by Styrous®

Sinclair Lewis ~ It Can't Happen Here
vinyl LP label, side 1
photo by Styrous®


vinyl LP, side 2
photo by Styrous®


Sinclair Lewis ~ It Can't Happen Here
vinyl LP label, side 2
photo by Styrous®


Tracklist:

Side 1:

A1     Band 1 - 18:45
A2     Band 2 - 3:09
A3     Band 3 - 7:08

Side 2:

B1     Band 1 - 6:16
B2     Band 2 - 4:50
B3     Band 3 - 18:29

Notes:

Readings from Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here" by his son Michael Lewis.

Sinclair Lewis Read By Michael Lewis (19) ‎– It Can't Happen Here
Label: Caedmon Records ‎– TC 1378
Format: Vinyl, LP
Country: US
Released: 1973
Genre: Non-Music


      
         
Viewfinder links:         
           
Marc Blitzstein       
Charlie Chaplin     
Noël Coward                    
John Ford       
Adolph Hitler     
F. Scott Fitzgerald         
Burt Lancaster     
Michael Lewis      
Louis B. Mayer         
Basil Rathbone        
Paul Robeson       
Franklin Delano Roosevelt     
Dorothy Thompson        
Donald J. Trump       
Orson Welles      
Orson Welles ~ Voodoo Macbeth            
       
Net links:         
            
Axios ~ Trump's "Deep State" hit list         
Cliff Notes ~ Sinclair Lewis Biography          
It Can't Happen Here Adaptations                              
St. Cloud State University ~ Bringing Sinclair Lewis into the 21st Century     
Syracuse University ~ Dorothy Thompson's Role in Sinclair Lewis' Break with Harcourt, Brace                 
War On the Rocks ~ How the Deep State Came to America: A History    
        
YouTube links:         
     
Sinclair Lewis ~             
        biography (56 mins., 53 secs.)                 
        Documentary (57 mins.)
        It Can't Happen Here (pt. 1) (reading) (4 hrs, 50 mins.)           
        It Can't Happen Here (pt. 2) (reading) (4 hrs, 50 mins.)          
        It Can't Happen Here (review)          
Berkeley Rep ~ It Can’t Happen Here (Official trailer)
It Can't Happen Here! (The making of a dictator) (1 hrs, 34 mins.)        
It Can't Happen Here and the Federal Theater Project (9 mins., 26 secs.) 
Sinclair Lewis: The Conscience of His Generation (6 mins., 40 secs.)       
             
       
            
              


"I love America, but I don't like it."
                      ~ Sinclair Lewis

    
            
              
Styrous® ~ Saturday, June 13, 2020       
       





            











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