The Sinclair Lewis Society
about.illinoisstate.edu

... Frequently Asked Questions ...

Did Sinclair Lewis say, "When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross"?

This quote sounds like something Sinclair Lewis might have said or written, but we've never been able to find this exact quote. Here are passages from two novels Lewis wrote that are similar to the quote attributed to him.

From It Can't Happen Here: "But he saw too that in America the struggle was befogged by the fact that the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word Fascism' and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty."

From Gideon Planish: "I just wish people wouldn't quote Lincoln or the Bible, or hang out the flag or the cross, to cover up something that belongs more to the bank-book and the three golden balls."

There was also a play by Sherman Yellen called Strangers in the late 1970s which had a similar quote, but no one, including one of Lewis's biographers, Richard Lingeman, has ever been able to locate the original citation.

Other variants include one from James Waterman Wise, Jr. in the Christian Century (Feb.5, 1936) who noted that Hearst and Coughlin were 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" (245). Another version is from 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 The Many Americas Shall Be One (1971) remarked "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'" (29).
...

Trump the savior-king
www.christiancentury.org

... Pete Hegseth may be the first Secretary of Defense whose tattoos have made headlines. In May 2020, he posted a photo on Instagram featuring the Latin phrase inked onto his right bicep: Deus Vult, meaning, "God wills it."

"Deus Vult" was the medieval Christian crusaders' battle cry. During the Crusades, Christians killed those who refused to convert, especially their Muslim Ottoman enemies, as they fought to conquer Jerusalem. White supremacists shouted the phrase as they marched on Charlottesville in 2017, and one January 6th rioter waved a white flag emblazoned with a red Jerusalem cross and the words "Deus Vult" as he approached the Capitol building.

Seeing the phrase on the arm of the Secretary of Defense disturbed medieval scholars, who understood it as "a call to religious violence." They saw it as clear evidence that Hegseth is "a Crusader fanboy."

Of course, Hegseth denies the link to any negative connotations his political rivals can dream up. But in his 2020 MAGA tome, American Crusade, he frequently references the medieval Crusades, and he urges the religious right to engage in a new "holy war."

He even nicknames Donald Trump "our Crusader in chief" and hints at his willingness to engage in future violence: "Our American Crusade is not about literal swords, and our fight is not with guns. Yet." Hegseth claims that these statements are metaphors. ...