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Chapter 8
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 an epigraph from Zero Hour, Buzz Windrip writes that patriotism, not intelligence, makes the best politicians—and he believes that white Americans are the greatest nation in the world. Windrip spends the rest of 1936 campaigning around the country, supporting everyone (including opposed groups, like the Bartenders’ Union and the Anti-Saloon League) and always mimicking the local people’s style. He’s a short, ugly man, with a giant head and long, straight black hair that “hint[s] of Indian blood.” Rumor has it that, during law school, he posed as a country doctor and sold fake remedies that killed several people.
Obsessive patriotism is always a key element of fascism, because it encourages people to relate to politics and their country primarily on an emotional level. Windrip’s campaign strategy shows how he does this: he convinces everyone that they should support him because he is just like them. But in reality, his political shape-shifting shows that he’s loyal to nobody at all. Put differently, Windrip prefers patriotism to intelligence because he doesn’t want people to think critically about his candidacy and proposals.
Themes
Doremus Jessup simply doesn’t understand how Windrip can charm so many people with his endless, vulgar lies and empty promises. Reportedly, Windrip is an incredible actor, with an unusual knack for understanding and connecting with his audience. He’s “a Professional Common Man” who just repeats ordinary prejudices—for example, he loves pancakes, dogs, Ford, and millionaires, and he hates tea, poetry, and foreigners. Meanwhile, Lee Sarason is a master of publicity: for seven years, he has coached Windrip to stick to this foolish country persona. And Windrip’s wife also fits the persona: she stays at home in the West, devotedly raising two children, tending to her garden, and studying the Bible.
Unlike Roosevelt, whose appeal rests on his New Deal policies, Windrip simply attracts voters because he’s a successful entertainer. And if his followers are more interested in entertainment than good government, then Windrip can remain popular so long as he entertains people—no matter what policies he actually implements in office. This is why dictators frequently set up cults of personality: their personas help them distract from and cover up their abuses of power. But Lewis also uses Windrip’s “Common Man” persona to satirize Americans themselves. Windrip plays on their hatred for elites—even though he’s an elite himself—and convinces them that giving him power really amounts to giving power back to the people. But in reality, he’s just exploiting their naïve, greedy, and xenophobic tendencies—including their firm belief that the U.S. is exceptional and will never fall into tyranny like Europe.
Themes
Wherever Windrip goes, he turns hotel rooms into chaotic campaign offices. He spends all day talking on the phone or to visitors, and every few minutes, he gets furious and throws his coat on the floor. All sorts of people visit him—he promises them anything they ask for, and he gives interviews on any and every subject. He wins over most of his visitors, except the journalists. And, needless to say, he never keeps any of his promises.
Lewis shows his readers Windrip’s dishonesty and tyrannical personality by giving them a behind-the-scenes view into his campaign. Yet, in the novel, most Americans support Windrip because they lack this inside information. By pointing out how voters are blind to Windrip’s obvious depravity, Lewis implies that most ordinary people—including his readers—could also find themselves supporting a tyrant if they fail to look for the warning signs.
Themes
Sophisticated Lee Sarason takes care of building relationships with foreign diplomats, and he masterminds Windrip’s strategy. For instance, he wrote Zero Hour and won popular support by strategically spurning an English duke. Windrip’s running mate is the genteel Southern planter and former governor Perley Beecroft, who—along with Sarason—has comforted the rich by showing them that Buzz’s talk about redistribution is just empty rhetoric. Windrip is a political genius: he has spent his whole life building a loyal following, and he publicly announces his opposition to fascism and Nazism as the same time as he advocates it.
Sarason simultaneously helps develop Windrip’s populist persona and builds the alliances with wealthy elites that Windrip needs to actually win power. So does Beecroft, who shows these elites how Windrip’s presidency will actually benefit them, while remaining boring enough to not tip off common voters. Notably, by disavowing fascism at the same time as he runs on a fascist platform, Windrip takes advantage of the naïve illusion that the U.S. is exceptional and that fascism “can’t happen here.”
Themes
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