I now find that Wikipedia marks this bromide as "misattributed" to Sinclair Lewis and offers the following note:
• Many variants of this exist, but the earliest known incident of such a comment appears to be a partial quote from James Waterman Wise, Jr., reported in a 1936 issue of The Christian Century that in a recent address here before the liberal John Reed club said that Hearst and Coughlin are the two chief exponents of fascism in America. If fascism comes, he added, it will not be identified with any "shirt" movement*, nor with an "insignia," but it will probably be "wrapped up in the American flag and heralded as a plea for liberty and preservation of the constitution." [The Christian Century, Volume 53, Feb 5, 1936, p 245]
• Another early quote is that of Halford E. Luccock, in Keeping Life Out of Confusion (1938): When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled "made in Germany"; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, "Americanism." Harrison Evans Salisbury in 1971 remarked about Lewis: "Sinclair Lewis aptly predicted in It Can't Happen Here that if fascism came to America it would come wrapped in the flag and whistling 'The Star Spangled Banner.'" [p. 29, The Many Americas Shall Be One, Harrison Evans Salisbury. Published by W. W. Norton, 1971.]
[*Almost random association, re "...any 'shirt' movement." In Wodehouse's 1938 classic "The Code of the Woosters," the British fascist character, Roderick Spode, is the leader of "the Saviours of England, better known as the Black Shorts." Spode adopted black shorts as a uniform because, "by the time Spode formed his association, there were no shirts left."]
On Jan 24, 2012, at 11:20 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Jan 24, 2012, at 9:08 PM, Carl G. Estabrook wrote:
>
>> Obama's State of the Union speech tonight bears comparison to the
>> home-grown fascism of Kennedy's SOTU of fifty years ago ("Ask not
>> what your country can do for you...")
>
> Fascism is 21st century Americanism.
>
> Really, Carl, fascist? This shit is as old as the USA.
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