Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in It Can’t Happen Here, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
American Fascism
Liberalism and Tolerance
Morality and Resistance
Political Communication and Mass Media
Summary
Analysis
The Minute Men go through all of Doremus Jessup’s private letters in his study and the Informer office. Emil Staubmeyer starts ignoring him, and Shad Ledue starts questioning him about his connections to Walt Trowbridge. Jessup realizes that he’s probably going to Trianon soon. The local fruit vendor and a homeless man also approach him to ask strange questions. One day, Buck Titus calls him and asks to meet with his whole family, plus Lorinda Pike and Julian Falck.
Like everyone else living under Windrip’s administration, Doremus Jessup knows that his freedom depends entirely on the arbitrary decisions of a few cruel, unqualified officials like Shad Ledue. Since Ledue already hates him, all of his interactions take on extraordinarily high stakes: if a Minute Man or government spy catches him, a single error could cost him his life.
Themes
Everyone is anxious at the meeting. Sure enough, Buck Titus reports that the government is arresting editors, and Jessup is next. The whole family has to leave for Canada tomorrow. Titus will help liquidate Jessup’s investments and drive everyone across the border with his fake Canadian plates.
Jessup has long dreaded this moment—but he’s extremely fortunate to have Buck Titus warn him and help plan his escape. Jessup and Titus’s friendship shows that trust and solidarity are crucial to surviving dictatorship. After all, tyrants can only remain in power so long as they isolate and terrorize the people who live under them.
Themes
Jessup protests that he hasn’t done anything wrong and doesn’t want to leave his country, which he has a duty to help. But Titus declares that he’ll get killed anyway. Mrs. Candy says that he should think about how the women in his family will feel if he gets killed, and Lorinda Pike insists that they can all do more to help the U.S. from Canada. Sissy reveals that Shad Ledue has asked her out, and that she’s frightened of him. Jessup finally agrees to go to Canada, but he’s secretly planning to return to the U.S. as soon as his family is safe across the border.
Like so many other anti-fascist intellectuals throughout history, Jessup realizes that he may have no choice but to go into exile. He feels that escaping to Canada would mean giving up on the fight against fascism and abandoning his fellow Americans. Yet he also realizes that his whole family is under threat, and he concludes that he will feel more comfortable dedicating his life to the resistance if his family is safe in Canada.
Themes
Jessup spends all of the next morning at the office, but he takes a long lunch break and rushes home to pack with the family. He brings clothes, a book, and all the money he can withdraw, while the rest of the family brings trifles like lingerie, photo albums, and toys. He anxiously says goodbye to Lorinda Pike in the bathroom and admits that he’s planning to return. Buck Titus packs Doremus, Emma, Sissy, Mary, David, and Foolish the dog into his car. Julian Falck says goodbye to Sissy—he wishes he could go, too—and Mrs. Candy gives them a coconut cake.
After living in Fort Beulah for generations, the Jessup family has to leave their hometowns on extremely short notice. For their whole lives, the U.S. has been politically stable, and they have been free to live their lives with little interruption. But the state of the country has changed radically in less than a year, and the Jessups are no longer safe. They barely even have the chance to bid their beloved friends and community goodbye. And they begin their daring escape, unsure when—or if—they will ever return.
Themes
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The Jessup family departs, and Buck Titus drives them north, up perilous, icy backroads toward the border. He’s an expert driver—for instance, when the windshield freezes over, he just sticks his head out the window and continues. Doremus Jessup is overwhelmed with fear, and he tries and fails to cheer up his family. After several hours, the car gets stuck in a snowdrift. Sissy, Buck, and Doremus struggle to get it moving again, while Emma makes coffee in an abandoned shack. Everyone drinks it with Mrs. Candy’s cake. The car gets moving again, and the family continues on their way.
Buck Titus singlehandedly makes it possible for the Jessup family to escape—clearly, they wouldn’t have been able to make this treacherous drive without him. Thus, Lewis again emphasizes how, under tyranny, social networks are the foundation of effective political resistance and, often, the key to survival. Readers already know what is happening to the numerous dissidents who never get the opportunity to escape: the government executes and imprisons all of them.
Themes
Buck Titus takes them down an abandoned trail through the woods to the border, but a searchlight catches them, and two Minute Men walk down a hill to the car. Buck Titus shows the guards his Canadian license, and Doremus Jessup feels like he’s a slave escaping to the north on the Underground Railroad. The guards say that the car can’t pass the border until the Battalion Leader comes to check on them in several hours. So, the Jessups try several other border posts—but get rejected at all of them. They turn around and drive home.
Doremus Jessup wanted an easy resolution to his dilemma, having hoped to bring his family to safety in Canada while dedicating his own life to fighting Windrip’s regime. But now, after their failed escape attempt, the Jessups will return to an uncertain future back in Fort Beulah. And Doremus must face the grim reality that if he chooses to resist the government, he will inevitably endanger his family. In other words, acting in the nation’s best interests will mean failing to act in his and his family’s best interests.
Themes
