What's The Quote and Who Really Said It?The quote starts, "When fascism comes to America it will ..."
This is one example where the internet doesn't help things, it actually muddies the water. For example,
here's one site where the quote is put on a bumper sticker as follows:
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross"--Sinclair Lewis.
That certainly sounds like something Sinclair Lewis would have said, but when I tried to find out where, the usual citation was the book
It Can't Happen Here. Which again makes some sense, since Lewis' novel was about the rise of fascism in America. One problem, though, the phrase "when fascism comes to America" appears nowhere in the book as you can see if you check
this online edition. Just for fun I checked just the word "fascism" and the word "cross", and nothing like the bumper sticker phrase came up.
Dave Weintraub
says the actual quote is "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag." Certainly a rather oddball quote for a firebreathing populist like Huey Long, to whom the quote is credited. Here's a
Wikipedia version of that same quote. Unfortunately when you click on Huey Long, there, it takes you to
some of his quotes, which includes this one:
"If Fascism comes to America it would be on a program of Americanism."Pat Buchanan
also credits the quote to Huey Long, but this time the quote is substantially different (and better IMHO):
When fascism comes to America... it will come in the guise of anti-fascism.Anybody know the real source and the real quote?
