At the Washington Post, Carlos Lozada compares Donald Trump with the fictional dictators of two novels that seem to uncannily anticipate the rise of today’s foul-mouthed “politician.” Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here (1935) and Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America (2004) both feature totalitarian politicians that will eerily remind readers of Trump’s policies and personality. The interesting part of these comparisons, Lozada writes, is how the citizens of the novels challenge, or don’t, these dictators:
Ordinary citizens, those who must decide how to live under a leader who repudiates democratic values and institutions, are the real story. They must choose: Resist or join? Speak up or keep your head down? Fight or flee?
