Tag Archives: Sinclair Lewis

Revisiting “It Can’t Happen Here”

By Robin Bates | Published: February 27, 2024

Mother Jones columnist David Corn finds increasing relevance in Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel “It Can’t Happen Here.”

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“Citizen Kane” Foretells Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: November 22, 2020

“Citizen Kane” is Trump’s favorite movie. It matches up only too well with his presidency.

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Novels That Predicted a Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: August 30, 2020

Lewis’s “It Can’t Happen Here” and Roth’s “Plot against America” do a very good job of predicting a Donald Trump.

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Mike Pence=Elmer Gantry + Uriah Heep

By Robin Bates | Published: May 15, 2018

Columnist George Will calls Mike Pence a cross between Elmer Gantry and Uriah Heep. I see the two and raise to a Dante sycophant and Shakespeare’s Cassius.

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How Trump Is Changing the Discourse

By Robin Bates | Published: May 12, 2016

Adam Gopnik of “New Yorker” and Andrew Sullivan of “New York” are very, very frightened by the rise of Trump. As they explain why, they quote Tom Stoppard, Sinclair Lewis, Mark Twain, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Plato.

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Could Fascism Happen Here?

By Robin Bates | Published: February 2, 2016

Sinclair Lewis’s “It Can’t Happen Here,” about the election of a fascist in a 1930s presidential election, seems suddenly relevant again. The novel turns 80-years-old this year.

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Rick Perry, a Modern Day Elmer Gantry

By Robin Bates | Published: August 8, 2011

It’s not that either Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry or Texas Governor Rick Perry are religious hypocrites. It’s just that they conflate their religious beliefs with their earthly desires.

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