It can happen here: When satire becomes a battle plan

The headlines of the past week recalled two political satires with chilling relevance: Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel “It Can’t Happen Here” and Christopher Buckley’s 1986 “The White House Mess.” Lewis’s dark satire takes readers through an authoritarian takeover of the United States. Buckley’s novel opens with a pajama-clad president who refuses to vacate the White House when his successor arrives for the inauguration. Satire uses humor and exaggeration to make a point about societal folly. But the actual news coming out of Washington suggests that both Lewis and Buckley’s fantasies may not have been exaggerating enough. Last week, President Trump escalated his claims that the 2020 election was a fraud, invoking a similar playlist of “rigged,” “stolen,” and “deep state.” Much of the media attributed the speech to Trump’s obsession with the past. They are wrong. Trump’s focus is not on November 2020, it is on November 2026. By reviving doubts about the last election, Trump lays the groundwork of paranoia to make Americans question the next one. Less noticed was a headline about Trump’s latest White House pet project: a “beautiful” (Trump’s words) granite helipad on the South Lawn. It joins an expanding portfolio of presidential home improvements: the big, beautiful ballroom; the trendy new patio paved where portions of the Rose Garden once bloomed; and a refurbished bathroom off of the Lincoln bedroom featuring floor-to-ceiling black and white Statuary marble and gold fixtures. These are not exactly the signs of a tenant counting down the months until his lease expires on Jan. 20, 2029. Given Trump’s affection for princely habitats adorned in gold, one might expect him to be planning his next phase of post-presidential residences in New York, Florida… maybe even Scotland. Instead, he appears intent on making the White House fit for a king, or perhaps a crown prince. The election rhetoric and the royal renovations may seem unrelated. Together, however, they reflect an administration keen on treating democratic norms as temporary inconveniences, and presidential power as a permanent possession. Until now, I have resisted theories that Trump could invalidate enough midterm results to preserve his House majority, or somehow extend his own presidency. The stuff of conspiracy theories, some say. I have been assured that American traditions, laws and systems can counter a Trump-style coup. Perhaps they can. But reading history, and even literary satire, teaches us not to confuse institutional endurance with institutional invincibility. We read history not because it predicts the future but to grasp the recurring weaknesses of human nature: the allure of power; the tendency to bend facts around our prior beliefs; and the willingness, across the ideological spectrum, to exchange democratic principles for the promise of security. There are several “flashpoints” which Trump could exploit during the midterms. He could deploy federal forces to polling places in certain swing districts to coerce and intimidate. His administration could attempt to seize and invalidate ballots in targeted districts. He could pressure friendly Republican governors in purple states, as he did after the 2020 election, to fish for additional votes. He could lean on Republican congressional allies to manipulate — or even disregard — the rules for governing the seating of new members on Jan. 3, 2027. He does not necessarily need a neat, definitive victory. He needs constitutional chaos: competing claims, disputed ballots, emergency court filings. Just enough uncertainty to allow the full weight of his presidential thumb on the scales. The administration and its enablers have built the scaffolding on which democracy will hang. They have cultivated a modern-day version of Lewis’s “minutemen,” the paramilitary force that enforces his fictional regime through intimidation and violence. Today’s would-be minutemen have allies in Congress willing to shrug at the 2021 attack on the Capitol, and Trump’s pardons for some of its most violent participants. Trump’s signal is unmistakable: I had your back then. I’ll have it again. And that message matters. Democrats, meanwhile, have been studying this political battlefield, war-gaming every offensive and rehearsing for their first breach. Alongside bipartisan allies, they have marked red lines and fortified democracy’s defense. But they may need to prepare for more than carrying legal briefs to a knife fight. In 2016, when Hillary Clinton appeared certain to defeat Trump, my literary agent suggested that I write a political satire based on an alternative history. My premise was that Trump defeated Clinton, won reelection, and then organized a nationwide strategy to repeal the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two elected terms. Trump’s victory made the project obsolete. Reality overtook a $28.99 political satire before I could even write it. If we have learned anything from Trump, it is that the most imaginative satiric stretch shrivels against the reality of his headlines. Bulldozers turn the White House into a palace. The Pentagon announces testosterone screenings for troops. ICE agents fatally shoot people during street encounters. A nominee for director of national intelligence refuses to say plainly that Biden won the 2020 election. And the president delivers a national address invoking conspiracy theories that could help undermine confidence in the next one, all in the last week. You couldn’t make this stuff up. Or, more precisely, you could … but an editor might send it back for being too implausible. Satires are warnings. When the unimaginable happens, we can’t say we were not warned. Steve Israel represented New York in the House of Representatives for eight terms and was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from 2011 to 2015. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.