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Chapter 19
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 the novel’s final epigraph from Zero Hour, Windrip writes that Jewish people are inherently cruel, while “Nordic” people are inherently kind. The chapter begins by explaining that after having Dr. Fowler Greenhill shot, Shad Ledue, Emil Staubmeyer, and Effingham Swan justify their decision by testifying that Greenhill’s house was full of subversive literature (like Marx and Trowbridge). The government seizes all of Greenhill’s property, so Mary and David have to move back to Doremus Jessup’s house. Mary is overwhelmed with grief: she doesn’t leave her room or speak at the dinner table. In contrast, nine-year-old David talks constantly, bothering everyone else, and Emma constantly worries, but about the wrong things: she thinks that Doremus going to jail reflects poorly on the family. (But Lorinda Pike was proud of him.)
Just like Hector Macgoblin after the murders of Willy Schmidt and the Rabbi Vincent de Verez, Swan and his cronies get away with murdering Fowler Greenhill by making up an excuse that plays into Windrip’s agenda. Of course, it’s no surprise that the new regime overlooks their extreme abuses of power—by doing so, it makes Windrip’s own abuses of power seem more acceptable. Meanwhile, the Jessup family deals with the personal fallout of Fowler Greenhill’s death. Needless to say, they are just one of the countless American families facing similar devastation under the new fascist regime. Thus, their experience offers a window into the widespread suffering that abandoning democracy could create in the U.S.
Themes
Surprisingly, work isn’t too awful for Jessup. Emil Staubmeyer reveres Jessup and stupidly praises everything he does. Thus, Jessup never has to really apologize for his editorial, and he gets away with a technique he calls the “Yow-yow editorial.” In the first part of an editorial, he gives a strong, well-written critique of the government. In the second part, he refutes that critique as badly as he can. He often considers quitting his job, but he has to support Emma, Sissy, Mary, and David. Still, he feels no different from a dishonest salesman who sells scam products to support his family. But fortunately, Jessup won’t accept dishonesty forever.
Jessup intentionally becomes a terrible propagandist: he takes advantage of Staubmeyer’s incompetence in order to keep publishing editorials that reflect his actual liberal values. This shows how authoritarianism’s tendency to value loyalty over competence can backfire. Specifically, it leads to mismanagement and dysfunction, which leaves the government open to legitimate criticism and often alienates the public. Over time, these failures can plant the seeds of a resistance movement. After all, Lewis clearly believes that people will always exchange ideas and rally around the best ones, even if oppressive governments try to restrict this exchange as much as possible.
Themes
Jessup knows that he could escape to Canada with $20,000, and that his family could probably survive on just $1,000 a year. But he doesn’t know what he would do in Canada, and he knows that Emma would hate living in poverty. So, like people everywhere living under tyranny, Jessup continues weighing whether to stay or go. When he mentions quitting, Emil Staubmeyer and Shad Ledue remind him that his freedom is still conditional. He hates that Staubmeyer rewrites his prose to favor the government and has moved into his office.
Jessup imagines trading his affluent but deeply unpleasant life in the U.S. for an impoverished but free and purposeful life in Canada. He recognizes that his own values sharply conflict with Emma’s: while she just wants to live comfortably, he wants to publish freely and contribute to the resistance against Windrip. In fact, this is the same conflict that resurfaces over and over again throughout the book: most people care primarily about their own status, wealth, and safety, while a noble minority cares far more about the state of society as a whole.
Themes
Jessup’s only solace is meeting with Lorinda Pike, who has started organizing young women through cooking classes and preparing them for the revolution. Karl Pascal is also still organizing. He asks Jessup to join the Communist Party, but Jessup explains that he’s a steadfast liberal intellectual who has no interest in supporting Russia and different interests from the working class.
Unlike Doremus Jessup, Lorinda Pike and Karl Pascal channel their anti-fascist sentiments into actual political activities. Yet Jessup decides not to join them because he doesn’t share their perspective or political goals. They want to create a different kind of authoritarian utopia, while he wants a return to democracy.
Themes
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Meanwhile, Father Perefixe decides to return home to Canada, and the formerly pro-Windrip miller Medary Cole gets fed up with the Minute Men. One day in October, the Corpos send 70,000 Minute Men to capture “every known or faintly suspected criminal in the country.” After swift military trials, they are variously executed, imprisoned, released, or hired into the Minute Men. (Medary Cole cheers this policy.)
The mass arrests are clearly a sham designed to win support from gullible law-and-order types like Medary Cole. In fact, Cole’s quick about-face again reflects Lewis’s belief that fascists can easily use lies and propaganda to fool a majority of people into supporting truly abominable policies. The novel doesn’t depict the widespread trauma and suffering that these arrests are sure to inflict on the “suspected criminal[s]” and their families, but readers need only remember Fowler Greenhill’s execution to understand it for themselves.
Themes
Next, the government overhauls the education system, closing independent universities and forming new Corpo ones, starting with Windrip University in New York and Macgoblin University in Chicago. These new universities teach an “entirely practical and modern” curriculum, with no “intellectualism” or “tradition” involved. Macgoblin directs a team of scholars to develop this curriculum. They replace history with a course on the superiority of Anglo-Saxon civilization, literature with recent newspaper clippings and political speeches, and science with courses on practical issues like mining, canning, and band music. Sports and military drills become the core of the new curriculum, which only takes two years to complete. When Doremus Jessup learns about the new curriculum, he remembers that Isaiah College has been shut down, and that Victor Loveland is now teaching in a Corpo labor camp.
In the universities, as in the media, the fascist government replaces critical thought with rigid propaganda. Before, universities taught citizens to think independently about themselves and society, while the news served to help them make wise, informed collective decisions. But now, universities and the media have abandoned these high-minded goals—they merely push for the government’s agenda and chosen narrative. Put differently, rather than fostering free thought and helping people explore multiple perspectives on the world, they now function to suppress free thought by telling people exactly what to believe. Needless to say, both Lewis and his protagonist Doremus Jessup see this as a tragic loss and view freedom of thought, education, and expression as one of liberal democracy’s greatest advantages.
Themes
