It Can’t Happen Here

How often I wonder how people go under,                      G
So easily go to war.                                                               G  D
Always surprised how we listen to lies,                           C  D
And the evidence we ignore.                                              D G7   

How all of our freedom can turn on a dime,      C
Suddenly disappear.                                                   G C
Fragile democracies run out of time,                   D
Believing it can’t happen here.                              D G

The land I was born in, we lived without fear.                G
The best and the brightest were all welcome here.      G  D
With so many people from faraway shores,                  C  D
The war was on poverty, not on the poor.                      D G7         

And we really believed that the future was ours, C
Reciting it year on year.                                             G C
Pledged our allegiance to stripes and to stars,    D
Believing it can’t happen here.                                 DG       

They opened the floodgates, I’ll bet you know when,     G
Chief Justice John Roberts, Two thousand and ten.   G  D
Captured by money, and now any fool                           C  D
Can see what’ll happen when oligarchs rule.                 D G7

Now taxes go down on  the richest of men,         C
While families live in fear.                                      G C
We reject all reliance on factual science,            D
Believing it can’t happen here.                              DG

Attack universities, cripple the press,                              G
Confederates crowing that this is success,                   G  D
Hospitals closing, and kids disappear,                          C  D
And secret police in tactical gear.                                  D G7

We used to stand tall about justice for all.        C
Now justice is all for sale.                                       G C
We  cater to tyrants, threaten our friends,       D
Wave Bibles to stay out of jail.                              DG

American patriots turn in their graves               C
At the cheap patriotic veneer.                                G C
Conservatives, why don’t you open your eyes, D
Admit what is happening here?                             D///C///
With your hat in your hand and your head in the sand,  D
Quit pretending it can’t happen here!           D-  C///D///G—     

©Doug Hendren 2026

What’s it about? For anyone who slept through the first year of the second Trump administration, the United States has seen a degree of corruption and lawlessness described by one observer as “dozens of Watergates every week.” While federal courts have stood up for the rule of law on many occasions, several key US Supreme Court decisions have contributed heavily to the unraveling of democratic institutions. In 2010, one critical moment was the infamous “Citizens United” decision, which essentially allowed unlimited “dark money” into US elections. And in June, 2024, the US Supreme Court effectively put the US president beyond the reach of criminal law.

One of the most persistently bewildering features the Trump administration has been the continuous cascade of false and misleading information on an endless variety of subjects, from the security of our electoral laws to the safety of American public health recommendations. Under this anti-scientific regime, a generation of America’s scientists is rapidly disappearing, many migrating to Europe, Canada, China and elsewhere. America’s premiere scientific institutions are being dismantled or defunded, and now operated by largely unqualified people selected not for expertise but loyalty. Public confidence in childhood vaccines has been undermined. Measles, long ago eliminated in the US, is now returning. We are likely to lose our measles elimination status sometime in 2026.

America’s great universities have been repeatedly attacked by this administration. Trump singled out Harvard in particular, but so far without success (see my piece “Crimson Courage“), but numerous institutions have suffered from these political attempts to control admissions, policies and curricula. As recounted by William Kirby in Harvard Magazine (This is How Universities Die),  this happened in Germany a century ago under the National Socialist regime. Her universities, once the greatest in the world, never recovered.

Under the Trump administration, we have seen highly concentrated ownership of mass media, and greatly increased militarization in the US, including both DHS/ICE size and presence, politicization of our National Guard, and a vastly increased proposed Pentagon budget. The administration has legally harrassed and punished countless individuals and businesses whose social policies it doesn’t like. It has forcibly rolled back women’s rights and civil rights, most recently weakening the 1965 Voting Rights Act, opening the door to gerrymandering in numerous states in an effort to keep the GOP in power despite its highly unpopular policies.

“When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” The observation attributed to Sinclair Lewis captures the flavor of the Trump regime, and of recently deposed Hungarian prime minister Victor Orban. Don’t be fooled. Christian Nationalism is about power, not about religion.

These are all signs of fascism. What is fascism? Take a look at the fact sheet below, published by the US Army in 1945. And here is a list of some early warning signs of fascism, from the US Holocaust Museum.

Remember the observation of Nazi leader Herman Goering on trial in Nuremberg, 1945: “All you have to do is tell [the people] they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”

Fascism, Army Talk  War Dept. Orientation Fact Sheet #64, March, 1945