Truth Imitates Fiction—It Has Already Happened Here

It Can't Happen Here was a best-selling satirical political novel by Sinclair Lewis published in 1935. It aroused considerable controversy when published and in the years leading up to World War II. The plot featured the account of a crusading newspaperman, Doremus Jessup, struggling against the newly elected fascist regime of President Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a populist leader whom some observers on the political Right assumed was a parody of FDR while others, particularly on the political Left, rejected the possibility that a "popular" leader of the Democrat Party could possibly lead the country into a Fascist regime.