Month: October 2017

In 1935 watching events unfold in Europe Sinclair Lewis wrote “It Can’t Happen Here”, a novel whose plot is about a take-over of the United States by forces of the extreme right using tactics akin to those that brought the Nazis to power in Germany with an American flavor.

“It Can’t Happen Here” of course was a fast written topical novel of its time and most agree that the man Lewis had in mind as his model for a far right leader was Sen. Huey P. Long, the bellicose, dangerous authoritarian from Louisiana assassinated in 1935.  If you’ve read “All the King’s Men” the novel by Robert Penn Warren or seen either of its movie versions, especially the 1948 version with Broderick Crawford, then you know the Huey Long story. Continue reading “It’s Happening Here”

Unalphabatized here are words historians will certainly use 50 years from now when they write the terrible history of these times — terrible being but an example of the words that capture what has happened to this country and seemingly will continue for  more time to come.

Imbecile, imbecilic crazy ,nuts, scary, moronic, moron, imbecility, lunatic, lunacy, ignoramus, ignorant, dumb, stupid, maniac, maniacal, sadistic, sadist, fool, foolish, ignoble, idiot, idiotic, weird, bizarre, reprehensible; catastrophe, catastrophic.

Base, evil, devil, asinine, ass, insane, conniving, conniver, clown, clownish, disaster, disastrous, demented, grim, grime, grimy, gross; corrupt, corrupting, corrupted, crank.

Misery, miserable, misanthrope, misogynist, racist, sexist, misogynistic, bigot, bigoted, bigotry; calamity, calamitous, horrid, horrible, awful, atrocious, contemptible, crude, cruel, leach, leche, lecherous.

Nasty, nastier, nastiest; rude, rudest, rudely, wicked, inhuman, inhuman, crazy, putrid, contemptible; liar, lying, lied.

There are yet more but many if not all of these will be necessary to describe what Nov. 8, 2016 led to – though where it will end is now impossible to know but certain to be — and there’s that word again — terrible.