DonOLD Trump is the fictional "Senator Berzelius 'Buzz' Windrip" morphed from fiction to fact

Does no one see the building blocks of fascism piling up?

GLOBE Opinion letter published in the Boston Globe:

As I read the news Friday of a second major US newspaper declining to endorse a candidate for our next president, the chills I felt when reading Sinclair Lewis’s 1935, novel, “It Can’t Happen Here,” passed through me again.

“The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trump’s authoritarian appeal.”—Salon  "It Can’t Happen Here" is the only one of Sinclair Lewis’s later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America.

The novel follows the rise and election of Senator Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip to the presidency. After his inauguration, he forms a new auxiliary of the army that reports only to him. The voice of the free press is diminished as Windrip becomes America’s first dictator.

Those who have read this novel recognize the parallels today. Now the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, reputable national newspapers that provide fact-checked journalism that is needed to make election decisions, have refused to endorse a candidate in this presidential election. Is this the beginning of “It Can’t Happen Here Part Two”?

Voters have lived through these years of chaos and have an opportunity to be heard. Vote while you can. Do something; this may be the last time you have that opportunity.

From Linda Wolk in Lexington Massachusetts