I think I must read this book

PICTURE THIS: A folksy, self-consciously plainspoken Southern politician rises to power during a period of profound unrest in America. The nation is facing one of the half-dozen or so of its worst existential crises to date, and the people, once sunny, confident, and striving, are now scared, angry, and disillusioned.

This politician, a ''Professional Common Man,'' executes his rise by relentlessly attacking the liberal media, fancy-talking intellectuals, shiftless progressives, pinkos, promiscuity, and welfare hangers-on, all the while clamoring for a return to traditional values, to love of country, to the pie-scented days of old when things made sense and Americans were indisputably American. He speaks almost entirely in ''noble but slippery abstractions''-Liberty, Freedom, Equality-and people love him, even if they can't fully articulate why without resorting to abstractions themselves.

[...]

While more paranoid readers might be tempted to draw parallels between this scenario and sundry predicaments we may or may not be in right now, the story line is actually that of Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here, a hastily written cautionary note about America's potential descent into fascism, recently reissued by New American Library in a handsome trade edition with a blood-spattered cover design.

Now, I know it's easy to draw parallels to the past, especially with the current administration, which seems to be representing every 'doomed to repeat it' we've ever earned for 'not learning from history', but this book sounds almost creepily prescient. It's available at Amazon, although the version I found had barbed wire instead of spattered blood. I guess the idea is the same (and I certainly hope the text is!) (via A&L daily)

Wrap it in real barbed wire and voila! Instant spattered blood!

Yucky!