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Chapter 11
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
In this chapter’s epigraph from Zero Hour, Buzz Windrip declares that the U.S. should fund the universal $5,000 wage by producing all of its own goods—“even coffee, cocoa, and rubber”—and promoting international tourism. The chapter opens with Doremus Jessup attending Windrip’s final rally, which is two days before the election. After arriving to New York in the foggy November evening, he feels overwhelmed by the crowd. He decides to take a taxi instead of the train, but the taxi gets stuck in traffic.
Windrip’s call for national self-sufficiency is impossible and absurd, not least of all because coffee, cocoa, and rubber simply do not grow in the continental U.S. With Jessup’s trip to New York, Lewis plays with classic tropes about the political and social differences between small-town America and the big city. Of course, he does this ironically, because small-town Jessup is the elite intellectual defending modern democracy, while the man he’s coming to see in the city, Buzz Windrip, claims to represent traditional small-town values.
Themes
After checking into his hotel, Jessup walks around the city. He notices several men arrogantly swaggering down the street, dressed in blue mock army uniforms. He realizes that they’re Windrip’s militia, the Minute Men, who are led by Colonel Haik. They wear five-pointed stars (because the Jews and Soviets use six-pointed stars) and white and khaki shirts (because European fascists all wear colored shirts).
Needless to say, the Minute Men’s superficial differences from the Soviets and European fascists don’t make them any less dangerous. In fact, every fascist regime has incorporated partisan paramilitary forces into the government, in order to police the public and help the fascist leader and party maintain power.
Themes
Jessup enjoys a Chinese dinner and then heads to Madison Square Garden. On his way, he passes through enthusiastic crowds, who shove policemen and sing Windrip songs. He sees group of nine Minute Men attack an elderly FDR supporter and then a naval officer who tries to intervene. They knock the officer down and start kicking him in the head with their boots. A block later, 30 Minute Men assault a group of Communists. Jessup is surprised to see “a scrawny Jewish intellectual” run into the crowd, hitting Minute Men left and right. A group of FDR supporters steps in to protect the communists, but then the riot police start arresting them in order to protect the Minute Men.
Jessup witnesses a frightening scene of political violence, a herald of the nation’s fate if Windrip wins the election. Of course, Lewis is writing ironically when he says that the police are protecting the Minute Men—they’re really doing the Minute Men’s bidding by arresting their victims. Perhaps the police sympathize with Windrip, or perhaps they recognize that the Minute Men are more powerful than they are and so choose to obey them. Either way, this alliance between the police and the Minute Men shows that Windrip has already transformed American political culture, undermining the expectation that the government should treat different citizens equally, regardless of which politicians they support.
Themes
The Minute Men stand guard all around and throughout Madison Square Garden. The crowd is mostly working-class “Manhattan peasants” who are worried about financial insecurity and the future. The rally begins with a band performance, a prayer, and a lackluster speech from Senator Porkwood. Colonel Haik’s speech is more convincing: he cracks several jokes, tells a story about a wise carrier pigeon in the Great War, and then introduces Buzz Windrip. The crowd goes wild as a group of Minute Men leads Windrip into the auditorium.
Windrip continues to undermine democratic and legal norms by having his private Minute Men force, not the police, guard his event. To Jessup, this red flag contrasts with the audience’s obvious desperation and the entirely mediocre performances from the band and Senator Porkwood. Put differently, thus far, Jessup’s evening has shown him that Windrip’s campaign is deeply pathetic, but also extremely dangerous.
Themes
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Windrip’s speech begins with an awkward story about visiting New York when nobody knew his name. Windrip describes (and misremembers) his platform, then starts rhapsodizing incoherently about freedom, justice, patriotism, and so on. But Doremus Jessup is surprised to find the speech so absorbing. Everyone in the audience feels like Windrip is revealing hidden truths directly to them. Windrip declares that he’s not running to win money or power for himself—instead, he wants money and power for the people. He wants to create a perfect democracy, with trustworthy representatives instead of corrupt political machines. Windrip actually seems reasonable, honest, and compassionate—Jessup starts to wonder if he might even be right. But after the speech, Jessup can’t remember a thing that Windrip said. He leaves the rally sure that Windrip will win.
This scene is extremely significant to the novel as a whole because it’s the only time that Jessup actually sees Windrip face-to-face. This means that it’s also the reader’s only chance to see Windrip directly, through Jessup’s eyes, and evaluate whether the real man lives up to the myth. In fact, Jessup is disarmed to find that Windrip is both far more buffoonish than he expected, yet just as persuasive—and therefore dangerous—as he feared. Jessup sees firsthand how Windrip wins support by building a strong emotional connection with his audience, without making realistic policy promises. Yet even though Jessup knows that Windrip is lying, he still enjoys the speech. This suggests that ordinary people—who don’t share Jessup’s education, knowledge of politics, and deep commitment to liberal values—probably don’t stand a chance of seeing the truth behind Windrip’s rhetoric.
Themes
Surely enough, on election night two days later, Jessup sees a parade march past his house, singing Mrs. Adelaide Tarr Gimmitch’s new song about Buzz Windrip’s victory. The song says that any “Antibuzz” who voted against Windrip is a traitor and should be jailed. Jessup sees Shad Ledue and Aras Dilley marching with the parade, and Francis Tasbrough following it in his car. Later that night, the parade burns down Louis Rotenstern’s shop sign and beats up the town’s curly-haired jeweler Clarence Little. The following evening, Jessup finds a poorly-written death threat on his porch. He doesn’t tell anyone, but he wakes up several times at night, worried.
Windrip wins the election, and his followers immediately start demanding loyalty to him, which shows that Jessup was right to worry about him setting up a fascist state. Even Louis Rotenstern, who tried to protect himself from anti-Semitism by outspokenly supporting Windrip, is suddenly under threat. In addition to ranking citizens on a hierarchy (based on loyalty, race, religion, gender, etc.) Windrip’s followers will also clearly use every available tool to shut down their opposition. This means that Jessup’s core liberal values are in serious peril—most of all, the freedom to speak and publish dissenting opinions. For the rest of the novel, Jessup and the reader can only wonder why more Americans didn’t recognize and act to stop the threat that Windrip posed far earlier on.
Themes
