“A Biology of Dictatorships" : liberalism and modern realism in Sinclair Lewis’s 'It Can’t Happen Here'.

Abstract

“America” is to New World liberalism as the doctrine

of the divine right of kings is to medieval monarchy.

Open competition, group pluralism, voluntarism, private

enterprise, personal rights, community by contract and

consent, equality under the law, mobility, free opportunity,

individualism— all the tenets of modern liberal society

find their apotheosis in the symbol of America. The process

by which the United States usurped America for itself,

symbolically, is also the process by which liberalism

established its political and economic dominance.