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Chapter 4
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 a brief quote from Buzz Windrip’s Zero Hour, Windrip describes newspapermen as greedy, godless swindlers who secretly plot to manipulate politicians and extort the common man. Then, the chapter begins with Doremus Jessup waking up and stretching in the morning. He’s a rough sleeper, so he and Emma sleep in separate bedrooms. It’s Saturday, the day of Prang’s show, but Jessup’s son Philip is also visiting town for a picnic. The whole family will be there, as will Lorinda Pike and Jessup’s closest friend, the rugged but intellectual Montana cowboy Buck Titus, who moved to Fort Beulah to run his late father’s farm.
The next 15 chapters will also start with epigraphs from Zero Hour. Each epigraph shows how Windrip’s political career relies on deceit by ironically commenting on the chapter that follows. For instance, in this epigraph, Windrip attacks dishonest journalists (like his campaign manager Lee Sarason) just before the reader again meets the novel’s hero, the honest journalist Doremus Jessup. Jessup’s picnic plans show that he’s still deeply connected to his family and friends, even if his relationship with Emma is no longer what it used to be.
Themes
Shad Ledue helps set up the picnic, grumpily complaining the whole time. Philip comments that Doremus should fire Ledue. Doremus agrees that Ledue is a terrible worker, but he also finds him curious. For instance, Doremus adds, Ledue is now backing Buzz Windrip in the election. Philip replies that even though Windrip sounds like a demagogue, he’s really going to protect “the decent clean [American] people” from Jews and Communists. When Doremus hears this, he sighs in resignation.
Shad Ledue is the antithesis of Doremus Jessup: he’s ignorant, arrogant, and lazy, while Jessup is educated, humble, and prudent. Throughout the book, their relationship serves as a metaphor for the nation’s political predicament. Ledue does whatever he wants and takes advantage of Jessup, because he believes in nothing but power and self-interest. Meanwhile, Jessup tolerates and continues working with Ledue because he believes in following higher moral principles, like respect and equality. Finally, Philip’s conspiratorial thinking shows that Windrip’s propaganda can persuade nearly anyone, regardless of their class or education—not just the “Forgotten Men” like Ledue.
Themes
The Jessup family has its picnic at Doremus’s cousin Henry Veeder’s farm just outside town, on Mount Terror. While the other men wrestle and argue, Doremus lays on the grass and gazes out at the beautiful valley, and the women set up the food. Everyone eats and chats cordially about their lives. The picnic lacks the “modern and neurotic” pace of the 1930s—it may as well be the 1800s again, except when Buck Titus mentions all the “Messiahs,” like Windrip and Prang, who are trying to save the country from itself. Julian Falck, the Reverend’s handsome young grandson, also visits the picnic. Along with the wealthier but less intellectual Malcolm Tasbrough, he’s fighting for Sissy Jessup’s heart.
In addition to representing Jessup’s peaceful, carefree life, this idyllic picnic scene also shows how people’s everyday lives can be totally independent from politics when the government grants them a certain level of freedom. The novel hinges on the contrast between realist liberals like Jessup, who believe in letting people live the lives they wish and changing the world slowly through democracy, and idealistic “Messiahs” like Windrip, who believe in seeking absolute power and then using that power to build the world they envision.
Themes
Meanwhile, Doremus Jessup fiddles with a borrowed portable radio to catch Bishop Prang’s show. Prang’s voice is forceful but charming. He reads a verse from the Book of Jeremiah, in which God tells the invading Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem, and says that the same is happening in America today. He lists the League of Forgotten Men’s demands: control over the banks, better pensions for retired soldiers, a cap on fortunes and inheritances, more power for unions, and a ban on “International Jewish” finance, communism, anarchism, and atheism. Prang declares that the Forgotten Men are done waiting, and that wealthy senators and bankers must give up their power to the common man.
Prang’s apocalyptic rhetoric interrupts the Jessup family’s quaint picnic, foreshadowing how Windrip’s presidency could upend Jessup’s life (and the nation’s fragile but functional political system). Like Windrip in his Zero Hour, Prang tries to appeal to as many listeners as possible by mixing legitimate policy proposals (like pension reform) with allusions to important cultural symbols (the Bible) and attacks on a standard but ill-defined list of enemies. Thus, while Prang’s policy proposals may seem reasonable, his rhetoric is dangerous because he is really telling his “Forgotten Men” that they would be right to seize power by any means necessary.
Themes
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Prang officially endorses Buzz Windrip and declares that the League will propel him to the presidency. Emma Jessup comments that Prang sounds like a left-winger, but Doremus replies that Buzz Windrip will soon be running the whole country as a fascist dictatorship. Julian Falck and Buck Titus joke about Windrip, and Fowler Greenhill insists that “America’s the only free nation on earth,” and that a revolution just “couldn’t happen here!”
Emma points out that, at first, it sounds like Prang’s policy proposals will benefit most people. But Doremus sees that these proposals are just an excuse to get Windrip into power. The real purpose of Prang’s broadcasts is to turn the public against democracy by convincing them that the nation’s survival depends on acting in the kind of strong, unified way that only a dictatorship can. Once they believe this, the people will hand Windrip power and allow him to dismantle democracy. Once he does, he may or may not fulfill his policy proposals—but he absolutely won’t give up power.
Themes
