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Chapter 1
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
After the Rotary Club dinner, Doremus Jessup will go to Francis Tasbrough’s house for an afterparty. But first, he drives Emma home. They pass through the sleepy, picturesque New England granite-mining town of Fort Beulah, where Jessup has lived almost all of his life. Looking out at the moonlit woods and meadows, he wonders whether Vermont—and the U.S.—can create more great men like the senator Stephen Douglas or the religious leader Brigham Young. Today, Jessup thinks, most young people are too lazy and sheltered to do anything great. Maybe General Edgeways and Mrs. Gimmitch are right, he thinks—maybe the U.S. needs a war to whip its young people into shape. Emma Jessup interrupts Doremus’s train of thought by reminding him not to drive in the middle of the road.
In his first chapter, Sinclair Lewis used the Rotary Club dinner to introduce the social and political context where his protagonist, Doremus Jessup, lives and works. (It’s an exaggerated but recognizable version of Lewis’s reality.) Now, Lewis introduces Jessup himself in greater detail. Despite his discomfort with Edgeways and Gimmitch, Jessup still sees the appeal in their call for a visionary strongman to lead the U.S. to greatness through war. Specifically, this idea appeals to Americans’ need for a sense of unity, purpose, and hope—all of which they lacked during the Great Depression (when the book is set). Of course, Jessup’s swerving on the road is a metaphor for how this kind of thinking can lead people awry.
Themes
The wealthy, imposing Francis Tasbrough lives in a large house on Pleasant Hill, near the Jessups. As a young boy, Tasbrough enjoyed hitting other children in the head, and Doremus Jessup—who is six years older—used to protect him. Tasbrough’s guests assemble in his barroom: Doremus Jessup, Medary Cole, the local school superintendent Emil Staubmeyer, the banker Roscoe Conkling Crowley, and the elderly Rev. Mr. Falck, who grew up in a wealthy New York family and then spent his career seeking solitude in Fort Beulah. Most of them find the elegant leather-and-metal decorations distasteful, but they all appreciate the whiskey and snacks.
Like most other characters in this novel, Francis Tasbrough functions as a stand-in for a specific segment of American society—and his attitudes and actions represent how Lewis thinks that segment will respond to fascism. After all, Tasbrough’s early abuse of other children shows that he has sadistic and selfish tendencies, and readers will soon learn how these same values guide his business practices and his actions under the fascist regime. Similarly, Jessup’s willingness to protect Tasbrough during their childhood is consistent with his commitment to tolerance and democracy today. All of the other characters who assemble in Tasbrough’s barroom also represent different segments of American society: small business owners (Cole), low-level bureaucrats (Staubmeyer), financiers (Cole), and religious leaders (Falck).
Themes
Tasbrough criticizes Jessup for being a liberal and invites him to “join the family.” He declares that the Jews, communists, and union leaders are plotting together to undermine business leaders. But Jessup has supported unions striking against Tasbrough’s company—he even befriended the “alien murderer Karl Pascal.” Jessup agrees with Tasbrough that the country’s political situation is serious: Senator Buzz Windrip might win the presidency next year, especially if the popular radio personality Bishop Prang endorses him. Jessup thinks that Windrip will launch a war, dismantle democracy, and set up “a real Fascist dictatorship.” Tasbrough doesn’t think the U.S. could ever descend into tyranny, but Jessup disagrees.
Tasbrough and Jessup’s conversation sets up the central political conflict in the book: fascism versus liberal democracy. Crucially, Tasbrough isn’t directly calling for a fascist dictatorship—but he does share the core fascist worldview. Specifically, he thinks that the country must band together to destroy its enemies—whom he portrays as shrewd, treacherous outsiders—at any cost. In contrast, Jessup believes that these invisible enemies don’t really pose a threat, and that Windrip is just fearmongering in order to justify antidemocratic measures that would give him more power. Of course, Tasbrough essentially admits that his business interests would also benefit if Windrip annihilated the country’s enemies. Thus, Lewis shows how fascism can win over elites by promising them even more power and wealth at the expense of the majority of the population, all while appealing to that majority through empty promises and emotionally charged rhetoric.
Themes
Jessup gives several examples of fascist tendencies in American life, including the dictatorial Louisiana governor Huey Long, hysterical nationalism during the Great War, and lynching and the KKK. But R.C. Crowley declares that Windrip would give bankers like him the power they deserve, while punishing “lazy bums” who live off government assistance and making the country more efficient. Staubmeyer even credits Hitler with saving Germany from Communism. Tasbrough admits that he’d love to have a strongman for president, but he claims that “it just can’t happen here in America.” Rev. Mr. Falck appears to mouth the words, “the hell it can’t!”
Through Jessup’s speech, Lewis argues that the U.S. is just as prone to the kind of irrational, antidemocratic mass politics as Italy or Germany, even if the country’s people believe that it has special democratic values. The U.S. might not share other countries’ culture or political history, but fascists always try to glorify their own nation’s particular virtues, so American fascism will inevitably look different. Specifically, Lewis uses this conversation to warn that American fascists will justify setting up a dictatorship by talking about common American values like hard work, capitalism, and (most ironically of all) anti-authoritarianism.
Themes
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