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 New Underground journalists and pamphleteers are talented, but unlike the Corpos, they’re bound by facts. The Corpos hire many prominent former journalists, scholars, and public relations agents, and they tightly control most mainstream newspapers. There is less and less real news, but more and more comic strips, alarmist headlines, and polemic articles about the Corpos’ economic success. Windrip and his inner circle tout their new programs on daily radio addresses, and new government-subsidized movies about heroic Minute Men flood Hollywood. The Windrip dictatorship may have seemed folksy and good-humored at first, but within a year, it is as brutal and terrifying as any in Europe. As Doremus Jessup reads the political theory he hid in his sofa, he starts to think that all dictatorships use exactly the same sadistic tactics, no matter their ideology.
Lewis depicts Doremus Jessup’s political theory reading sessions in order to argue that tyranny really does follow a distinct formula. Even though dictators always describe themselves as unique geniuses, in reality, they usually use the same predictable—and preventable—tactics. First, Lewis explains how authoritarians use censorship and patronage to manipulate the media to their advantage. They don’t simply shut down the free press—instead, they pay off its workforce and gradually replace its content with propaganda in order to sustain the illusion that it’s still free. Thus, it would be a mistake to imagine a fascist society as lacking information media—instead, it’s just the opposite. Fascist regimes try to drown out the truth by setting up too much information media.
Themes
Windrip’s economic policies also follow the same pattern as other dictatorships: besides a few bankers, businessmen, and soldiers, everyone in the country gets far poorer. The government uses accounting tricks to make the economy look healthy, like increasing minimum wages that nobody is eligible to receive. Windrip increases funding for the Minute Men so massively that even loyal followers start to wonder why. The administration seizes farmers’ land and crops to pay for it, and people across the country start to starve and lose hope.
Next, Lewis explains how dictators achieve their economic goals—enriching themselves and their allies—while using violence and deception to prevent the public from noticing or resisting their tactics. Windrip applies this strategy by identifying all parts of the economy that aren’t under the government’s control, then destroying them or incorporating them into the government through the Corpo boards. Once his administration has full control of the economy, he can distribute power and profit however he wishes, to further his own political goals. Notably, Windrip’s famous $5,000-a-year promise is no longer even on the table—his voters must either forget or admit that they were duped.
Themes
The government starts taxing all leisure activities—which people stop attending anyway, because they’re so afraid of the government’s spies. Doremus Jessup, once the chattiest man in Fort Beulah, now avoids everybody except his New Underground colleagues. He envies the large, well-organized resistance movements working in Rome and Berlin—in contrast, Fort Beulah’s tiny New Underground cell is drab and boring (especially now that Lorinda Pike is gone). Jessup feels like his shabby pamphlets can never defeat the well-organized Corpo propaganda machine. Besides, the world seems to have long given up on morality and justice.
Third, Lewis uses Jessup’s day-to-day life to show how dictators maintain control over society by dividing and isolating the ordinary people who might resist them. By arbitrarily persecuting citizens, dictators spread fear and paranoia, which prevents people from organizing (or even hoping) for change. In fact, this strategy is so successful that it makes Jessup feel isolated and powerless, even though he knows that the New Underground is actually a well-organized nationwide movement, much like the ones fighting fascism in Italy and Germany.
Themes
In June, Francis Tasbrough calls up Doremus Jessup and passes on some confidential information: Windrip is replacing Secretary of War Osceola Luthorne with Provincial Commissioner Dewey Haik, who will be replaced by John Sullivan Reek. Tasbrough might be getting Reek’s job as District Commissioner, and he wants Jessup’s support. In fact, Tasbrough wants Jessup to officially join the Corpos and offers him control of the Informer (or a prominent government job) if he does. Jessup says no, and he tries to forget about the call.
Finally, Lewis uses Tasbrough’s promotion to remind the reader that loyalty and self-interest are the most important currencies in a dictatorship. Tasbrough only supports Windrip because Windrip offers him power and money. And he doesn’t realize that if he’s willing to sabotage his rivals to secure power, then his rivals will also certainly be willing to sabotage him. Finally, his decision to ask for Jessup’s support shows that he doesn’t know the first thing about Jessup’s actual beliefs—the reader already knows that unlike everyone in Windrip’s government, Jessup isn’t interested in betraying others for power and money.
Themes
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