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Lots of people sharing the famous quotation from Sinclair Lewis today: "When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving the cross."
It's a good quote, but Lewis never said it. Quick thread on attribution:
It's a good quote, but Lewis never said it. Quick thread on attribution:
What Lewis said, in It Can't Happen Here (1935), was that American fascists would be those “who disowned the word ‘fascism’ and preached enslavement to capitalism under the style of constitutional and traditional native American liberty.”
Lewis also says in the novel that American fascism would be “government of the profits, by the profits, for the profits.” Both good quotes, and both pretty apt to the Trump administration. But the wrapped in a flag and waving the cross?
That probably comes from James Waterman Wise, son of a prominent rabbi, who gave lectures in the late 1930s warning of fascism in America. Different quotations from his lectures were given in the papers at the time and circulated widely.
A distinctly American fascism, Wise said in early 1936, would "probably be 'wrapped up in the American flag and heralded as a plea for liberty and preservation of the constitution.'"
Another newspaper reported a different version a few weeks later. "There is an America which needs fascism," James W Wise said in this version. "The America of power and wealth’ depended on ‘enslaving the masses’ to endure. ‘Do not look for them to raise aloft the swastika,"
... "or to employ any of the popular forms of Fascism" from Europe. Fascism. "may appear in the so-called patriotic orders, such as the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution" or "it may come wrapped in a flag or a Hearst newspaper."
In 1937, Lewis's then-wife, journalist Dorothy Thompson, offered her own version. "When Americans think of dictators they always think of some foreign model," she said, but an American dictator would be "one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American."
And the American people, Thompson added, "will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of 'O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief!'"
(She was talking about Roosevelt, as it happens, but the warning stands.)
(She was talking about Roosevelt, as it happens, but the warning stands.)
In 1938, Professor Harold Luccock at Yale said: “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.’” This, too, circulated widely.
In 1944, vice president Henry Wallace warned that what would make fascism American-style “really dangerous” was a “purposeful coalition” among crony capitalists, “poisoners of public information,” - ie propagandistic media - and “the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.”
The 1944 Hepburn-Tracy film Keeper of the Flame put it like this: “I saw the face of fascism in my own home: hatred, arrogance, cruelty. I saw what German women were facing. Of course, they didn’t call it fascism. They painted it red, white, and blue, & called it Americanism.”
The point, in other words, is not to find the "right" quote. It is to note how many, many Americans living through fascism tried to warn us that fascism could happen here, & what it would look like when it did. They told us American fascism would look American. That is the point.
PS Luccock had more to say in 1938 btw: “The high-sounding phrase ‘the American way’ will be used by interested groups, intent on profit, to cover a multitude of sins against the American and Christian tradition, such sins as
lawless violence, tear gas and shotguns, denial of civil liberties." He added: "Never, probably, has there been a time when there was a more vigorous effort to surround social and international questions with such a fog of distortion and prejudice and hysterical appeal to fear."
I could keep going. Americans warned about this endlessly during the interwar years, and got called “hysterical” and “alarmist” for their efforts.
Oh and another apt quote from Sinclair Lewis. In It Can’t Happen Here a character notes of the American fascist dictator, “Buzz isn’t important—it’s the sickness that made us throw him up that we’ve got to attend to.” 
Ok I wasn't going to go through all of this but this has taken off a bit and people want to know how the quotation we know evolved. The answer, as far as I can tell, is ... anecdotes about Huey Long.
Part II:
Part II:
After Long's death in 1935, various quotations were attributed to him from memory in local newspapers, eg in 1940 a reader recalled Long "saying when fascism comes to America, it would come in the name of defending democracy."
Other versions of Huey Long's (supposed) saying circulated at the time. "When fascism comes to America it will come in the guise of anti-fascism" was also popularized in 1940, when a prominent conservative commentator used it to argue against FDR's third term.
Lillian Hellman (NOT a reliable witness!) spread it in 1941. "I think back to what Huey Long said. 'When fascism comes to America, we'll call it anti-fascism. I think he was right."
(However let us remember that Mary McCarthy said that every word that came out of Lillian Hellman's mouth was a lie, including "and" and "the.")
Our friend Dorothy Thompson attributed a similar quote to Long in 1941: "American Fascism would never emerge as a Fascist but as a 100% American movement; it would not duplicate the German method of coming to power but would only have to get the right President and Cabinet."
Around 1942, it's still attributed to Long, but starts to swing back to "when fascism comes to America it will come in the guise of democracy."
In 1943, another version is considerably vaguer (and less catchy). "Long himself said that when fascism comes in America it will come under some other name." Memories are starting to slip ...
By 1953, it's being embellished. "When Fascism comes to America, he [Long] said, it will not call itself Fascism. It will call itself by some such fine deceiving title as 'League of Liberty.' We shall not accept it. It will sneak up on us, capture us."
In 1958, still attributed to Long, it's fascism coming in the guise of Americanism. By 1971, it's Long saying fascism will come in the guise of patriotism.
In 1973 "Huey Long of Louisiana" is credited with saying something we'd recognize: "When fascism comes to America, it will probably be wrapped in the American flag."
By 2002, some are still attributing it to Long, but now explaining who he was (!): "As Huey Long, a Louisiana politician, stated 70 years ago, 'when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag."
Earliest version I've found (so far) of any newspaper quoting the version we know, with both flag and cross, and attributing it to Sinclair Lewis, is January 2005, a local Ohio paper. Followed six months later by a local Poughkeepsie paper.
I can't find a track for where it slipped from Long to Lewis, but it's easy enough to see how it could. And at that point everyone assumed it was from It Can't Happen Here, because that was Lewis's anti-fascism book.
Voila. And that, friends, is how cultural mythology evolves.
Voila. And that, friends, is how cultural mythology evolves.
