It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush

By Joe Conason

Book Overview

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis, author of It Can't Happen Here, 1935 For the first time since the Nixon era, Americans have reason to doubt the future - or even the presence - of democracy. We live in a society where government conspires with big business and big evangelism; where ideologues and religious zealots attack logic and the scientific method; and where the ruling party encourages xenophobic nationalism based on irrational, manufactured fear. The party in power seems to seek a perpetual state of war to hold on to power, and they are willing to lie, cheat, and steal to achieve their ends. The question must be asked: Are we headed toward the end of American democracy? Nobel Prize - winning author Sinclair Lewis depicted authoritarianism American-style in his sardonically titled dystopian novel It Can't Happen Here, published in 1935. Now, bestselling political journalist Joe Conason argues that it can happen here - and a select group of extremely powerful right-wing ideologues are driving us ever closer to the precipice. In this compelling, impassioned, yet rational and fact-based look at the state of the nation, Conason shows how and why America has been wrenched away from its founding principles and is being dragged toward authoritarianism. Praise for the books of Joe Conason: "A comprehensive, well-researched indictment of a bunch of nasty people who really deserve it." - Molly Ivins on Big Lies "When Joe casts his eye on the cadres of the right, they invariably emerge battered, with their arguments filleted, their sources of money exposed, and their real motives laid bare." - Michael Tomasky, former editor, The American Prospect, on The Raw Deal "A hundred years from now the primary source on the so-called Clinton scandals will still be The Hunting of the President by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons." - James Carville on The Hunting of the President

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312356056
• ISBN13: 9780312356057
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 1.0" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

How Bush's authoritarian presidency could lead to fascism

This is the most forthright and incisive book on the Bush administration's lies, deceptions, subversions of the Constitution, and secret and illegal activities that I have read. Conason has a way with not only words but an ability to organize and present the damning facts in a clear and decisive manner. He begins with a sort of reprise of some of the points made by Sinclair Lewis in his famous novel about the fascist threat to America in 1935, "It Can't Happen Here." Some of the parallels are stunning. For example: "Buzz Windrip, a charismatic politician with little intellectual curiosity but great capacity to appeal to the regular guy, is elected president." George W. Bush could play this part. "Windrip regularly expresses contempt for the press (except for the newspapers of the ultraright Hearst empire)..." Murdoch's media empire including Fox News fits nicely. "Windrip is entirely the creation of Lee Sarason, a brilliant, ruthless strategist and advertising man..." Karl Rove fits. Windrip "exudes a syrupy compassion for the white, Christian, middles-class family while proclaiming a staunch moral and patriotic conservatism. He often mentions that he has read the Bible at least a dozen times." Bush doesn't read that much, but he does hold daily pray sessions that everybody on staff is tacitly required to participate in. "His most important supporters are the nation's religious fundamentalists, notably a radio preacher with millions of followers who hails Windrip as God's chosen leader, and the country's wealthiest businessmen, who understand that he is their wholly owned instrument despite his populist rhetoric." "Soon after taking office [Sarason and Windrip] seize upon the genuine economic crisis besetting the country to arrogate more and more power to the White House. Windrip turns Congress into an advisory body and starts appointing hacks to the courts." "His government conducts business in near-total secrecy, acting to suppress or control the press while the Hearst media serve as propaganda outlets...lavishing praise upon the president and all his works, including his plans for a preemptive war on Mexico." (The quotes are from pages 5-7.) Throw in George Orwell's prediction of perpetual war in "1984" in order to control the population and increase centralized power, and we can see that our Bush nightmare has all happened before except then it was fiction. Now unfortunately it's all too real. In this regard, Conason recalls James Madison's statement: "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." And that brings us to Chapter 1, "The `Post 9/11 Worldview' of Karl Rove." Karl Rove, clearly has read his Madison (and Machiavelli too) and as one of the two brains behind Bush (Cheney is the other) he knew that the best way to increase the power of the presidency and to ensure Bush's reelection was to start a war. As Conason reports, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rove, and Bush begin planning for the invasion

The Bush Administration Collides With Orwell's 1984

While I agree with some of the other reviews that state much of this information is available elsewhere, it was nice to find it in a well written book nicely packaged together. The book begins with a nicely written piece on the Sinclair Lewis book "It Can't Happen Here" and compares the current administration to that in the Lewis book. The author then begins a tour of the cast, which include all the favorites: Bush, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and dozens of others, many of whom were players in the Nixon and Reagan administrations. Descriptions are provided of the actions taken by this administration to create a perpetual war, so that the power of the President can become unitary. There is also thoughtful commentary of how the religious right and the corporate right got together behind Bush. The book is not flattering to most of the participants, and it is scary how close we were to having a theocracy in the United Sates. Although many people have battled to keep this from occurring, it seems as if it was the self destructive work of the current administration that kept us free from that occurrence. This book is recommended for any thinking American, and should be required reading for every voting American. This book would also be a good background book for those thinking the President should be impeached. The book is well researched, documented and written!

a book that exposes the lying liars and their evil plans

Joe Conason nails the Bushies. Richard Nixon claimed that he "was not a crook." His link to this administration is clear and Conason shows us the old Nixon boys in detail, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove as they attempted to give George W. Bush imperial powers with their campaign of lies and deceits. This secretive administration has tried to trash the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Hopefully, it's not too late to stop them. Americans are starting to awaken from our national nightmare, the Bushies.

Election year must read!

If you read a lot of newspapers every day, there probably won't be a lot of new information you'll learn in this book. But most of us don't--and even for those who know many of the facts, Conason's compelling story of how our government is being transformed into the opposite of what the American Revolution was fought for is necessary reading as we go into one of the most important elections in our history. Read this book and then consider where the different candidates stand--not on the War, not on stem-cell research--but on the fundamental qualities that made America the greatest nation in the world. Conservatives probably think they're going to hate this book, but conservatives more than anyone need to see how their principles have been hijacked to create the biggest, most intrusive government ever.

modus operandi of what brought unchecked power to Nazi Germany

Fascist Mussolini once described fascism as simply Big Government & Big Business working hand in hand. Joe Conason describes Sinclair Lewis's book, "It Can Happen Here", extremely well. In the book the newly elected president with has advisor, seize upon an economic crisis to aggregate more & more power to the White House. The Adminstration proceeds to turn Congress into an advisory board, as they start appointing political hacks to the courts. Acting on the assumption that constitutional procedures are a dangerous hindrance to executive powers, the administration swiftly begins to dismantel them. The U.S. Government begins to conduct business in near total secrecy (controlling or, at best suppressing the media). The country is eventually bankrupted while the wealthy few at the top grow even more wealthy. Any citizen who dares to question the new order is brought before a military trbunal to answer charges of treason. The book ends with the utter suppression of dissent, the complete nixing of the Bill Of Rights, the establishment of labor & dentention camps, and the violent suppression of labor unions & political rivals. The author gives us pertinent background to Lewis. For instance,Lewis had been married to Dorothy Thompson, who had been expelled from Berlin by the Nazis a year earlier and quickly became America's most outspoken critic of Fascism. After providing an excellent backdrop to the rise of Hitler's power the author bring us to the present and not so perfect present/future: Our very corporate style of government, most appropriate to a corporate state, where business executives and government officials can collude & pillage without concern for the troublesome checks and balances of a constitutional democracy. The White House imperative to remove protection for consumers, workers, & soldiers. Deregulate corporate management & subsidize corporate profits. Privitize Public service. Cut corporate and top-bracket taxes. Surrender public assets to private ownership. A very prescient work. Imperative for a public that should and must understand the message: TO BE FOREWARNED IS TO BE FOREARMED !!!! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!!!!