It Can't Happen Here

Windrip’s promise to give every American family a guaranteed income of $5,000 per year is used as a repeated motif throughout the text, as well as a symbol of Windrip’s demagoguery and the regime’s economic illiteracy. With this, Lewis shows the dangers of believing populist demagogues who are only interested in seizing power, as it becomes clear as the novel progresses that the promise will never be implemented. It is also used to highlight the importance of an engaged and politically-informed population; citizens’ belief in this promise is initially so strong that people begin buying expensive items on credit even before Windrip’s election. Those like Jessup, who attempt to point out the unlikelihood of the promised money reaching the hands of American families, are dismissed as cynics.

After Windrip’s election, the responsibility for poverty reduction is shifted to another organization (which can be blamed once they fail) and the regime mentions the promise less and less. As the novel progresses and the US economy deteriorates under the regime’s economic mismanagement, it becomes clear that the great American prosperity promised by Windrip is never coming. Finally, Colonel Haik’s statement that the money is never coming is, along with his national draft, is one of the reasons for the widespread rebellion against the regime.

Canada is frequently used through the text as a symbol of hope for liberal democracy to survive and thrive. To many characters, escape to Canada represents the possibility of survival under the regime, particularly those targeted due to their race, religion, gender, or political beliefs. The novel directly invokes the Underground Railroad, which transported freed slaves from the American South to Canada. By the time of Windrip’s regime, the old Underground Railroad has been restored and is now serving to transport those fleeing from the regime to Canada, where they can be safe. However, Lewis knows it’s important to show that liberal democracy is imperfect. Late in the novel, when Jessup is living in exile in Canada, he sees that Canada is struggling to deal with the large number of refugees and Canadians are increasingly frustrated by having to support them. At the same time, Canada is never shown to be threatened by totalitarianism because of this; instead, this is used by Lewis to emphasize that liberal democracy is predicated on society being able to make informed decisions about societal tradeoffs.

In the novel, the USSR and communism are used to show Lewis’s belief that all totalitarianism is inherently bad, and that liberal democracy is the best form of government. (It is important to note the context here: Lewis wrote the book 20 years before the start of the Cold War, at a time when sentiment towards the USSR was more mixed.) This symbol is often invoked through the character of Karl Pascal, a staunch communist, as he argues with Pollikop (a socialist) and later Jessup (a liberal). Pascal even invokes a variant of It Can’t Happen Here when he tells these other characters that American communism wouldn’t have the negative aspects that it had in the USSR. Lewis also uses communism as a symbol to critique the divided opposition that allows Windrip’s regime to consolidate power: the communist parties refuse to work with each other or any of the non-Windrip candidates, and later refuse to work with any of the other resistance groups once Windrip has taken power.