What Happened Here

With wit and anger, the author of the blackly comic What I Heard About Iraq takes us through the administration of the 'Bush junta'. Eliot Weinberger begins with the inauguration of George W. Bush and the actions and policies that presaged an invasion of Iraq even before the terrorist attack of 9/11. Giving a moving account of downtown Manhattan, where he lives, on the day after the attack, he accounts for the feeling of lost innocence in the United States. On the aftermath of 9/11, Weinberger goes on to excoriate the Bush administration for its panic peddling and massive and secret arrests of 'suspects', as well as the contrived 'intelligence' that led to the war on Iraq. Ranging from personal journalism to political analysis, Eliot Weinberger traces the nightmarish absurdities of the Bush administration with incisive elegance. Includes What I Heard About Iraq in 2005, the sequel to his earlier work. What Happened Here was nominated for a 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

A family falls apart as America is overtaken by totalitarian rule in this near-future dystopian novel echoing Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here. In 2035, fourteen-year-old Louise is interviewing her family members to find out what went wrong—for the family and the nation. It seems both started falling apart around 2019. Then the 2020 elections were canceled, and the president remained in power for sixteen years. This is the story of one family divided by ideology, and of undying hope in the direst of circumstances. In 1935, Sinclair Lewis challenged readers to imagine an America hijacked by a totalitarian president whose message was fueled by fear, division, and “patriotism.” Richard Dresser’s It Happened Here delivers a modern vision of just such an America. Told through the interwoven voices of eight different characters, it reveals how the Weeks family navigates the slow death of democracy in the country they all love.

How It Happened Here tells the story of the making of a film and the subsequent reception that the film received and the controversy and alarm that it stirred up when it was first released. The film-makers were two teenagers (18 and 16) and they started out with no budget and a borrowed 16 mm camera. The project took 8 years to complete. Part of the book is a humorous and detailed account of how the boys overcame all the practical and financial hurdles of amateur film making and saw the project through to completion and national release. This in itself would qualify the book as a thoroughly entertaining read and a sound basis for a course in film making or media studies of any kind. But this was no ordinary film. Kevin and his co-director Andrew Mollo took as their theme the "what if?" idea of a conquered and occupied England, after a hypothetical defeat and invasion following the Dunkirk retreat.

Bush in January 2001 - and an eerie prediction of the invasion of Iraq - and picks up on September 12, with an account of downtown Manhattan, where Weinberger lives, on the "day after.""--BOOK JACKET.

This book examines the Trump phenomenon and presidency as fascist. Fascism here connotes not generically "bad" politics or a consolidated political-economic regime (Mussolini’s Italy or Hitler’s Germany) but a set of political, movement, and ideological traits understood within the context of the neoliberal-capitalist era. While Trump’s election defeat is a respite, the nation is far from out of the neofascist woods. Defeating the menace will require political and societal restructuring far beyond what is imagined by Democrats. This argument is developed across seven chapters that recount Trump’s assault on the 2020 election, specifically define the meaning of fascism as it is used in this book, demonstrate the neofascist nature of the Trump presidency, engage intellectual class Trumpism-fascism-denial, analyze the Trump base, root Trumpism in a longstanding and indeed founding American white nationalism, examine why Trump rose to power when he did, and suggest paths for fascism-proofing the USA.

From award-winning author Michael Adams, Could It Happen Here? draws on groundbreaking new social research to show whether Canadian society is at risk of the populist forces afflicting other parts of the world. Americans elected Donald Trump. Britons opted to leave the European Union. Far-right, populist politicians channeling anger at out-of-touch “elites” are gaining ground across Europe. In vote after shocking vote, citizens of Western democracies have pushed their anger to the top of their governments’ political agendas. The votes have varied in their particulars, but their unifying feature has been rejection of moderation, incrementalism, and the status quo. Amid this roiling international scene, Canada appears placid, at least on the surface. As other societies retrench, the international media have taken notice of Canada’s welcome of Syrian refugees, its half-female federal cabinet, and its acceptance of climate science and mixed efforts to limit its emissions. After a year in power, the centrist federal government continues to enjoy majority approval, suggesting an electorate not as bitterly split as the ones to the south or in Europe. As sceptics point out, however, Brexit and a Trump presidency were unthinkable until they happened. Could it be that Canada is not immune to the same forces of populism, social fracture, and backlash that have afflicted other parts of the world? Our largest and most cosmopolitan city elected Rob Ford. Conservative Party leadership hopeful Kellie Leitch proposes a Canadian values test for immigrants and has called the Trump victory “exciting.” Anti-tax demonstrators in Alberta chanted “lock her up” in reference to Premier Rachel Notley, an elected leader accused of no wrongdoing, only policy positions the protesters disliked. Pollster and social values researcher Michael Adams takes Canadians into the examining room to see whether we are at risk of coming down with the malaise affecting other Western democracies. Drawing on major social values surveys of Canadians and Americans in 2016—as well as decades of tracking data in both countries—Adams examines our economy, institutions, and demographics to answer the question: could it happen here?

An essential primer for the thoughtful citizen. Since the election of Donald Trump, politicians, historians, intellectuals, and media pundits have been faced with a startling and urgent question: Are we threatened by fascism? Some see striking connections between our current moment and the tumultuous interwar period in Europe. But others question if these connections really reflect our current political moment or if they are another example of Eurocentrism and American provincialism speaking over a much more complex global political landscape.? Did It Happen Here? collects, in one place, key texts from the sharpest minds in politics, history, and the academy beginning with classic pieces by Hannah Arendt, Angela Davis, Reinhold Niebuhr, Leon Trotsky, and others. The book’s contemporary contributors include Ruth Ben-Ghiat on the trivialization of the term “fascism,” Jason Stanley and Sarah Churchwell on the Black radical perspective, and Robert O. Paxton on Trump. These writers argue firmly that fascism is alive and well in America today, but another set of contemporary voices disagree. Samuel Moyn demonstrates the limitations of historical comparison. Rebecca Panovka examines the uses and abuses of Hannah Arendt’s work. Anton Jager and Victoria De Grazia make the case that the social and communal conditions necessary for fascism do not exist in the United States. Still others, like Priya Satia and Pankaj Mishra, are critical of the narrow framework of this debate and argue for a global perspective. Did it Happen Here? brings together a range of brilliant intellectuals, offering vital takes on our evolving political landscape. The questions posed by editor Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins is one that readers will be debating for decades to come. Is fascism significantly influencing—even threatening to dominate—modern American politics? Is it happening here?

In this moving book, two skilled oral historians collect the words of Americans who have been victims of political repression in their own country. Disturbing and provocative, It Did Happen Here is must-reading for everyone who cares about protecting the rights and liberties upon which this country has been built.