It Happened Here: Looking Back on the Revivals of Sinclair Lewis’s Play During the Election of 2016

HowlRound: During the summer of 2016, I taught a course on American literature and culture of the 1930s. During the mid-point of the semester, I had students read Sinclair Lewis and John C. Moffitt’s playscript of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) productions of It Can’t Happen Here, based on the former’s 1933 novel of the same name. Both texts center on a Vermont newspaper editor named Dormeus Jessup who watches in horror as a fascist demagogue named “Buzz” Windrip is elected president after running a campaign based on promises such as giving each citizen $5,000 a year, and being viewed as a candidate “who tells it like it is” (Lewis loosely based the character on Huey Long). Post-election, America descends into a nightmarish Fascist-state, as Gestapo-like agents of Windrip begin suppressing those who criticize their leader and movement—including Jessup. As we gathered together one morning to discuss the play, I asked the students what their initial reactions were to the text. As if on cue, one student blurted out, “This is Trump. That’s pretty clear.”