Changes

===Long in American literature===

===Long in American literature===

[[File:Canthappenhere.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Theatre poster for Lewis' ''It Can't Happen Here'']]

[[File:Canthappenhere.jpg|right|230px|thumb|Theatre poster for Lewis' ''It Can't Happen Here'']]

Political historians, and—especially—novelists have explored the strange dictatorship Long created. Long has been considered a demagogue by some, and at times referred to himself that way.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=mHyeAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA261 Plain Folk of the South Revisited]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=IAk7iu1WHnYC&pg=PA396 The Kingfish and His Realm: The Life and Times of Huey P. Long]</ref> Sinclair Lewis's ''It Can’t Happen Here'' (1935), by a Nobel-Prize winning novelist, portrayed a genuine American dictator on the [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] model.<ref>[http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301001h.html See the full text at]</ref>  Starting in 1936 the [[WPA]], a New Deal agency, performed the theatre version across the country. Written with the express purpose of hurting Long's chances in the 1936 election, Lewis's novel outfits President Berzelius Windrip with a private militia, concentration camps, and a chief of staff who sounds like Nazi propagandist [[Joseph Goebbels]]. Lewis also outfits Windrip with a racist ideology completely alien to Long and a ''Main Street'' conservatism he also never embraced. Ultimately, Windrip is a venal and cynical showman who plays to the conformist resentments Lewis diagnosed in ''Main Street'' and ''Babbitt.'' Perry (2004) argues that the key weakness of the novel is not that he decks out American politicians with sinister European touches, but that he finally conceives of fascism and totalitarianism in terms of traditional American political models rather than seeing them as introducing a new kind of society and a new kind of regime. Windrip is less a Nazi than a con-man-plus-Rotarian, a manipulator who knows how to appeal to people's desperation, but neither he nor his followers are in the grip of the kind of world-transforming ideology like Hitler's [[National Socialism]].  

Political historians, and—especially—novelists have explored the strange dictatorship Long created. Long has been considered a demagogue by some, and at times referred to himself that way.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=mHyeAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA261 Plain Folk of the South Revisited]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=IAk7iu1WHnYC&pg=PA396 The Kingfish and His Realm: The Life and Times of Huey P. Long]</ref> Sinclair Lewis's ''It Can’t Happen Here'' (1935), by a Nobel-Prize winning novelist, portrayed a genuine American dictator on the [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] model.<ref>[http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301001h.html See the full text at]</ref>  Starting in 1936 the [[WPA]], a New Deal agency, performed the theatre version across the country. Written with the express purpose of hurting Long's chances in the 1936 election, Lewis's novel outfits President Berzelius Windrip with a private militia, concentration camps, and a chief of staff who sounds like Nazi propagandist [[Joseph Goebbels]]. Lewis also outfits Windrip with a racist ideology completely alien to Long and a ''Main Street'' conservatism he also never embraced. Ultimately, Windrip is a venal and cynical showman who plays to the conformist resentments Lewis diagnosed in ''Main Street'' and ''Babbitt.'' Perry (2004) argues that the key weakness of the novel is not that he decks out American politicians with sinister European touches, but that he finally conceives of fascism and totalitarianism in terms of traditional American political models rather than seeing them as introducing a new kind of society and a new kind of regime. Windrip is less a Nazi than a con-man-plus-Rotarian, a manipulator who knows how to appeal to people's desperation, but neither he nor his followers are in the grip of the kind of world-transforming ideology like Hitler's [[National Socialism]].