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It Can Happen Here a Case Against American Exceptionalism in U.S

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It Can Happen Here a Case Against American Exceptionalism in U.S It Can Happen Here A Case against American Exceptionalism in U.S. Political Fiction Masterarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Master of Arts (MA) an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz vorgelegt von Julian LAMPLMAYR, BA am Institut für Amerikanistik Begutachter: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Stefan BRANDT, MA Graz, 2020 1 Acknowledgments I would like to thank: first and foremost, my girlfriend Alisa, for her unconditional love and support as well as her unshakable belief in me; my sister Laura, for her kind encouragements and useful tips on the process of writing a master’s thesis; my brother Alexander, for his interest in the topic and thought-provoking views on it; my parents, for their patience; my friends at university and the dormitory for their significant contribution to these formative years in both academic and personal terms, especially Heike and Alina as well as Martina and Gundi; and my supervisor, for his important feedback, drawn from his vast knowledge about American culture. 2 Table of Contents Introduction . 3 1. Sinclair Lewis’s Dystopian Novel It Can’t Happen Here: Speculative Historical Fiction about a Fascist/Totalitarian U.S.A. 8 1.1. Fascist Trends in U.S. History Challenging the Idea of American Exceptionalism . 8 1.2. Fascist Preconditions Shown as Fulfilled during the Interwar Period in the U.S. 12 1.3. The Satirical Portrayal of the Rising Fascist Movement . 18 1.4. The Satirical Representation of the Fascist/Totalitarian Regime . 25 2. Philip Roth’s Alternative History Novel The Plot against America: A Hypothetical Look back at a (Proto-)Fascist Regime in the U.S.A. 31 2.1. “We Were a Happy Family in 1940”: The Portrayal of Jewish Life in the U.S. prior to Lindbergh’s Nomination and Election as U.S. President . 32 2.2. “The Nation’s Savior” versus “Hitler”: The Contrasting Representation of a Controversial U.S. Political Figure . 33 2.3. “They Live in a Dream, and We Live in a Nightmare”: The Contrasting Representation of a Controversial U.S. Presidency . 38 2.4. “The Plot against America”: Conspiracies and Plots as Narrative Devices . 48 3. Robert Penn Warren’s Historiographic Novel All the King’s Men: Antidemocratic Tendencies during the Interwar Period in the U.S.A. 53 3.1. The Motif of the American Dream and Its Corruption . 54 3.2. The Satirical Description of the Personality Cult around an Antidemocratic Leader 55 3.3. Lost Illusions (of Idealism) in American Politics . 60 3.4. Corrupt Politics Corroding Democracy . 65 3.5. The Motif of a Hopeful Future in the Face of a Burdensome Past . 67 Conclusion . 71 Works Cited . 76 3 Introduction It can’t happen here – or can it? The U.S. American author Sinclair Lewis addressed this question in his 1935 novel entitled It Can’t Happen Here. What can (or cannot) happen? Judging from the book’s historic context and subject, Lewis was referring to fascism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism.1 With the rise of these antidemocratic forms of government in parts of Europe and the Soviet Union during the 1920s and ‘30s, Lewis examined this topic in a U.S. American context, including the political system as it was at the time. The background to Lewis’s novel was not only the rise of fascist/totalitarian regimes outside the U.S. but also increasingly antidemocratic and populist tendencies within the country during the 1930s. One upcoming politician who was notorious for his populist demagoguery and totalitarian ambitions was Huey Long, the governor, and later senator, of Louisiana during the late 1920s and early ‘30s. The question of whether fascism/totalitarianism could happen in the U.S. became therefore all the more pressing. But what could be the reason as to why the novel was entitled It Can’t Happen Here rather than Can It Happen Here? or It Can Happen Here (as Lewis goes on to show)? The rationale behind this is alluded to in the book itself, that is, because many people refused to believe that fascism/totalitarianism was possible in the United States. After all, the U.S. was (and still is) arguably the longest-standing democratic country in the world (Desjardins, Hauer). Furthermore, it was (and still is) widely regarded as exceptional concerning its democratic virtues and traditions.2 This widespread idea instilled (and still instills) a false belief in many Americans that fascism/totalitarianism could not spread on American soil. The concept of American exceptionalism has been discussed by many scholars. Seymour Martin Lipset considers the U.S. political system exceptional (i.e. different from all other nations), yet double-edged (as the subtitle of his 1996 scholarly work already indicates). In his view, free democracy in the U.S. necessarily comes with a number of rather negative aspects including 1 In fact, the it is not unequivocally defined in the novel. When the issue of “[i]t can(’t) happen here” is discussed in the book by various characters, they are referring to slightly different things although they all go in the direction of the abovementioned concepts of fascism, etc. 2 The term exceptional in relation to the United States was first used by the historian and political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s. He asserted that “[t]he position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one” (518). 4 income inequality and low voter turnouts (13). Nevertheless, Lipset emphasizes the high level of patriotism in the United States, which includes a feeling of superiority – in terms of its social system and as a society in general – vis-à-vis other countries (51, 287-288; see also Paul 14). Deborah L. Madsen connects the notion of American exceptionalism to the United States’ self- image as “a city upon a hill” presenting the country as exemplary and thus as a model to the world (1-2).3 Donald E. Pease contends that American exceptionalism is linked to the United States being “’exempt’ from the laws of historical progress” – put differently, America is not prone to the (negative) developments of other countries (9, my emphasis). Heike Paul views American exceptionalism as the principal paradigm in American studies under which can be found “[a]ll of the myths” connected to American history (13-14), which she goes on to debunk in her 2013 work. Paul ties U.S. patriotism to the purported “exceptionality of American democratic republicanism” (15). As the abovementioned scholars argue, American exceptionalism denotes the widespread feeling of patriotism and superiority among Americans as well as the common belief that their country (including its political system) is not only exemplary but also immune to the (political and social) decline that befell other developed nations, especially during the 20th century. Up until today, one can argue that fascism/totalitarianism with a concomitant downfall of democracy has actually never happened in the U.S., so the latter theory still stands. Nonetheless, some political observers argue that this changed in 2016 with the election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States (Sunstein).4 At any rate, during Trump’s rise to political power in 2016 and ‘17, there was a sharp increase in the sales of dystopian novels such as Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here, George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (Wheeler).5 This rise in the popularity of dystopian novels in the United States around the time of Trump’s election as U.S. president speaks to a concern among the American public about the country’s (political) future, including the fear of real-life scenarios as imagined in the abovementioned novels. 3 The phrase “a city upon a hill” was famously used by John Winthrop in his lecture “A Model of Christian Charity” in 1630 (Brogan 43). 4 This thesis is not primarily concerned with whether the U.S. has become fascist or authoritarian under Trump as this, first, requires expertise in political theory and, second, is a matter of interpretation and therefore contention. 5 According to Claeys, “[d]ystopian novels are imaginary … dire futures” (269-270). 5 For the purpose of this thesis, I will investigate the portrayal of fictional antidemocratic political systems in the United States in U.S. political writing. It is worth mentioning that they do not necessarily need to fall under the category of dystopian fiction as defined by Claeys and other literary scholars. For my study, I have selected texts that take a look at the subject of antidemocratic systems from different temporal perspectives (that is, looking into the future but also into the (recent) past). To wit, the texts are Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here (1935) in addition to Philip Roth’s The Plot against America (2004) and Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men (1946).6 Using a text-centered approach, I will analyze which literary strategies and techniques (including motifs and themes) the authors employ in order to level criticism against the idea of American exceptionalism, especially the notion that the U.S. is exemplary in its social and political system as well as exempt from negative (i.e. antidemocratic) developments. I will argue that the selected novels demonstrate that antidemocratic forms of government are indeed possible in the United States by using points of reference and allusions to parts of American history and culture where antidemocratic tendencies already came to light. These are rather general concepts such as institutional racism and illegitimate use of violence but also more concrete references to, for example, the Ku Klux Klan and political figures such as Huey Long and Charles A.
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